


Couldn't Make This Up If I Tried

by flight_on_broken_wings



Category: Hawkeye (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Age Regression/De-Aging, Angst, Bucky Barnes is an Avenger and a badass but also a softy, Clint Barton is clueless and a mess, Clint Barton-centric, Clint/Bucky centric, Deaf Clint Barton, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Matt Fraction Hawkeye comics influenced Clint Barton, Mature Language and themes, Memory Loss, Mutual Pining, Not Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie) Compliant, Not Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant, Panic Attacks, Slow Burn, Steve Rogers is stressed out, Traumatized Children, Underage Drinking, WinterHawk Big Bang, and magic, inaccurate science, winterhawk - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-10
Updated: 2017-12-10
Packaged: 2019-02-13 03:55:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 39,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12975348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flight_on_broken_wings/pseuds/flight_on_broken_wings
Summary: The Red Room has found a way to de-age people. How this suddenly became a problem in Clint's life, he wasn't sure. How Bucky Barnes suddenly became a problem in his life, he did know, but he definitely wouldn't be voicing it aloud any time soon. Those types of feelings for a best friend and co-worker are entirely inappropriate, right? But simply refusing to think about it becomes a less than viable solution when he and Bucky are caught in the crossfire and find themselves de-aged by over a decade, and the primary caretakers for the much younger Natasha, who remembers nothing, understands no English, and has a violent streak. Yeah. That about sums it up."The bar may have been set low, but Clint was certain it could be set lower."





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> My contribution to the 2017 Winterhawk Reverse Bang.
> 
> The general idea/plot was also their's and and I am so appreciative that I got to run with it and turn it into this fic, which... got a lot longer than expected. It was a wild ride, and I hope I did it justice. All typos and mistakes are my own, apologies.
> 
> Check out this awesome art made by Sian1359 with the link to related works below!

The day hadn’t actually started off half bad. In fact, it was pretty okay, especially considering that in the past week, Clint had fallen off the roof of a collapsing building, been very nearly squashed by a rampaging Asgardian moose, and had come _this close_ to Tony forcefully ejecting him from the Quinjet because he couldn’t get that one verse of ‘The Final Countdown’ out of his head. So, all things considered, it really did start out okay.

For Clint Barton, that was saying something.

It began with being startled awake and dragged out of bed by an annoyed, knife-wielding Natasha Romanova half an hour past the time he had reluctantly agreed to meet her at the sparring mats. It wasn’t that there was a problem with the mats. Tony spared no expense on the Tower’s sprawling, high tech, two floors of gym, shooting range, and armory. The problem was the new set of sparring knives that his favorite Russian ex-assassin, who had apparently no regard for his health, had been just itching to try out.

That, naturally, required coffee first. A lot of coffee.

But not even that was the bad part. Clint emerged bruised and sorely beaten, and in need of a few butterfly bandages and an ice pack. But no stitches. And nothing broken. So, Clint took the win, showered, and then stole the last of the leftover pizza from the refrigerator without any complaints. None whatsoever.

“Ow, ow, ow, Jesus frickin’ Christ, Barnes,” Clint whined, hopping backward out of range of any more sneak attack rib jabs. He rubbed at his side with one hand. His other was occupied with holding his stolen pizza box aloft behind him, out of reach of his favorite ex-Russian assassin. (See, Nat could be his favorite _ex-assassin_ Russian and Bucky could be his favorite _ex-Russian_ assassin and then they could both be his favorites and he didn’t have to feel bad about anything.) “First of all, don’t sneak up on me. Second of all, there was no need for that. No need, at all. Can’t you see I’m bleeding? Jackass,” he grumbled as he scooted back slowly, eyeing any potential escape routes.

Unfortunately, Bucky saw right through Clint’s shifting, and between his broad, rather solid frame and the corner of the kitchen counter that he’d backed Clint into, there was no easy escape. There was the vaulting over the kitchen island, but Clint wasn’t _that_ in fear for his life. Yet.

“Quit whining. I barely nudged you,” Bucky said, deadpan, with a mostly bored expression but his signature ‘just pissed enough to be a little scary’ frown.

“Says the super soldier,” Clint grumbled under his breath, but didn’t try to hide the accusatory glare.

“Yeah, says me. Now hand it over.”

So, maybe Clint was a little guilty, but not in any way guilty enough to give over the pizza, even if it was cold, and two days old, and Bucky had called it last night during their weekly late Friday night Mario Kart tournament that had taken them into the very early hours of the morning.

“Nuh-uh. No way. Mine,” Clint insisted, shaking his head resolutely.

“Clint…” Bucky warned, voice low and vaguely threatening in a way that shouldn’t have been nearly as hot as it was. Even out of uniform- even in sweatpants riding just _a little_ too low and a t-shirt stretched across his chest just _a little_ too tight that Clint was really trying to ignore right about then- and with no weapons in sight, the man had the supernatural ability to project some serious ‘you don’t wanna fuck with me’ vibes.

(There was… definitely an inappropriate joke to be made there at his own damn expense, but Clint wasn’t gonna do it. Nope. He wasn’t allowed to go there. At least, that’s what he’d been berating himself over for a solid few months.)

“Nah way, Buckeroo. Finders keepers. You should’ve gotten to it faster.”

Bucky just maintained that piercing glare, staring out from behind the hair falling in front of his eyes. He crossed his arms.

“I had first dibs. You don’t disrespect dibs, you jerk,” Bucky complained, more grouchy and less threatening.

Clint shrugged and offered his best sympathetic, not-very-sympathetic smile.

At that, Bucky started forward slowly. A little smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth. Clint began to feel a bit like the oblivious gazelle in the National Geographic documentary, totally unaware of the danger it was in as the deadly fucking lion crept up closer. But if he was being completely honest… putting more distance between himself and Bucky was the last thing he wanted to do right about then.

Bucky sidled up closer, closer, Cint still frozen in place, hesitant, until he was well and truly corned. The edge of the marble countertop pressed into his lower back as he leaned back, suddenly aware that Bucky was not stopping and that Bucky was quite suddenly very up in his personal space.

Buck uncrossed his arms, the florescent lights playing off the metal of his left one as he reached out and grabbed the edge of the marble on either side of Clint’s hips. Not touching though. Nope, a good few inches between them as least in all places, even as Clint craned backward and Bucky leaned in just that much more. There was that tiny smirk again, the dark eyes and the easy confidence, and that little spark of something.

“You know,” Cucky started, tone low and quiet in a way that would’ve been almost difficult for Clint’s aids to catch if he didn’t have Clint’s full, complete, undivided attention. “I would expect this sort of thing from Steve. Tony too, maybe.” But then he was pulling back. “But not from you, ya bastard,” he grumbled. “It’s fine, you can have it.”

Bucky turned and began walking toward the sitting area, occupied by overstuffed couches and armchairs and the wall-mounted TV too large to exist anywhere but on its own designated wall.

“W- what?” Clint managed to get out, tripping over his own tongue. Great. Smooth. Awesome.

“Yeah,” Bucky called back over his shoulder easily, his entire demeanor changed with the flip of a switch. He went from, suave and dangerous and some other adjectives Clint wasn’t gonna use Bucky, to ‘sure bro, take the pizza, that’s totally chill with me, dude’ Bucky as he flopped down on the sofa  in the sweats, t-shirt, and bed-head he woke up in and grabbed for the TV remote.

Clint just stood there, backed up against the sink in the corner of the kitchen for a moment like an idiot. “Ugh, you just have to be difficult,” he heaved out under his breath, a frustrated noise escaping the back of his throat. “Freaking son of a-”

“You know I can still hear you,” Bucky called out cheerfully from where he was sprawled comfortably across the cushions, channel surfing.

“Well,” Clint snapped back halfheartedly, sighing. “Good to know one of us can… freaking super soldiers.”

Clint made up his mind then, taking the damn box of a half a cold pizza from the team dinner a couple nights ago and stomping his way over the TV. Coming up along the back of the couch, Clint dropped the box in Bucky’s lap. “Take it.”

Clint was about to turn on his heel and keep on walking toward the elevator when a hand shot out over the back of the couch and grabbed his forearm, tugging him back. “Nope, too late. Yours now.”

“What? No,” Clint insisted, shaking his head. “You called it. Your dibs. I’m clearly on the wrong side of the bro code on this one, Buck.”

Bucky heaved himself upright, dropping the box onto the cushion beside him and twisting his shoulders around to face Clint. “Yeah, and then I gave it to you,” he said, an amused smile so different from before playing out over his face as he looked up at Clint. That smile grew at the blatantly confused frown and furrowed brow as Clint stared back, more than a little suspicious.

“But-”

Bucky laughed, turning back toward the TV and flopping against the back of the couch. “Clint, buddy, it’s not that hard. I don’t even really want it that much.”

Clint walked around to the front of the couch, still eyeing him to any signs of trickery. “It’s just… weird.”

“Hmm?” Bucky hummed as he flipped through more channels. “What’s weird?”

“You’re being nice to me. There’s no other explanation. You _called dibs_ ,” Clint continued by way of explaining his confusion.

Bucky turned his head away from the screen to face Clint this time, looking at him with a raised eyebrow and a hint of disbelief. “What are you on about- I’m always nice.”

“Well that’s a lie. You’re actually a dick,” Clint explained. Bucky laughed, tossing his head back and dropping the remote altogether. “And I’m not saying that’s a bad thing or criticizing you, I’m not- I swear” Clint was quick to add, but Bucky looked pretty far from offended. Actually he was grinning and chuckling quietly to himself and looked pretty damn happy for whatever reason.

“Okay, true,” Bucky finally said, rescuing Clint from his awkward fear-of-foot-in-mouth moment. “But, to you, I mean. When have I ever been a dick to _you_.”

“Uhh, well,” Clint said, sitting down on the couch. “I do recall you punching me in the face-”

“Hey now, hold up” Bucky stopped him, but he moved over a little (possibly in the wrong direction to make more room) as Clint scooted back, and suddenly Clint found himself quite comfortably nestled in between the other man and the arm of the couch. “Not fair. You snuck up on me after I had- after I had a thing- and I apologized for that like a dozen times _and_ I brought you coffee afterwards.”

Clint shrugged apologetically, nodding. “Okay, fine, you’re right.” Clint recalled the incident, how they hadn’t really known each other all that well yet, how Bucky was still kind of new to the Tower and still working a lot of things with his head out and may or may not have just had something of an episode before yeah, Clint surprised him, and he lashed out a little teeny tiny bit.

But that had been a while ago. Hell no, no one in that Tower _wasn’t_ at least a little fucked in the head. But Bucky had come a long way since then. Both of them had.

Clint sighed. “Fine,” he droned out, slouching back into the cushion and crossing his arms. “You’re nice to me. Weirdo,” he muttered, eyes fixed on the television.

Bucky grinned again as he leaned back into a full body stretch, arms over his head and back arching and shirt riding up as he yawned and proceed with making himself comfortable. His right arm came down on the back of the couch across Clint’s shoulders, which Clint because suddenly acutely aware of even as he refused to tear his eyes away from the screen, which had little muddy children and a swiffer-bearing mother parading across it. Bucky’s left arm was reaching for the pizza box that had started this whole slightly-awkward-if-he-over-thought-it thing, and deposited it in Clint’s lap, flipping the cardboard lid open.

“Ya know, if me being nice to you makes you _that_ uncomfortable,” Bucky said, glancing over at Clint and snagging a slice of pizza with metal fingers, “we could just split it.”

“Hmm,” Clint nodded, turning away from the screen against his better judgement and searching the other man’s open expression. Clint’s own was a faux-serious as he contemplated it for a minute, nodding. “Alright Barnes, I think I can live with that.”

“Okay Barton, good to know. And,” he added, tone and expression matching the faux-seriousness, even if a spark of humor danced in his eyes. “If you ever want me to officially start being a dick to you too, just say the word.”

A laugh stole its way from Clint’s chest, even as he tried and failed to suppress the smile pulling at his mouth too. “Mhhmm,” he nodded, maintaining the impression he was giving it serious thought. “Will do, Barnes. Appreciate it.”

Bucky laughed again, eyes returning to the TV. “Sure man, don’t mention it.”

 

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

 

“Oh hell, oh damn, oh SON OF A-”

“Hawkeye!” Steve yelled out over the comms, cutting Clint off. “Not while you’re on national television please,” the Captain all but groaned.

If there was one thing Clint had learned while Avenging, it was that reporters had less of an inherent sense of self preservation than he did.

“Oh, uh, right,” Clint acknowledged a little sheepishly, glancing over at the people and cameras hovering around on the other side of the debris-strewn street. He kept running though, dodging another blast from one of the Hydra goon’s laser-y guns.

At least, they were working under the assumption that they were Hydra. Or maybe AIM. Something Hydra affiliated at least. The Avengers had only just arrived at the scene outside downtown Boston after weeks of SHIELD getting reports of weird happenings, and then finally after this- some sort of attack at the research institute. There had been a science symposium of some sort going on with a bunch of very smart people from all over the globe apparently. Unfortunately, it seemed being a very smart science person did not make you very smart when it came to evacuating a building and getting away from the scary guys with guns.

That is, about half of the Avengers arrived. They weren’t calling Banner in for a small scale attack in a major urban center, Thor was off-world, and Sam had been working at the VA when they’d gotten the emergency call. That left Clint and Natasha, Bucky, Steve, and Tony.

That was enough. That really should have been enough.

All that aside, unfortunately for Clint, this time dodging the blast involved him sprinting up the hood of a mangled, burning city bus and leaping through the smoke to the safety of the fifteen or so foot drop into the crater in the earth below.

“Oh man, this doesn’t look good.”

Clint hit the huge slab of concrete at the bottom, and he hit it hard. Awkwardly too, given the slanted angle. His ankle rolled painfully and he came down shoulder first and on his side in a way that made him sure he was going to have a nasty streak of bruising across his left ribs, shoulder, and hip. Partly it was due to the fact he couldn’t actually see the bottom or the slant of the surface he was landing on because of the smoke pluming from the bus engine, but it was also partly due to the fact that the world clearly hated him. But hey, he could’ve gotten himself impaled on the twisted, snapped rebar jutting from the debris, so that was a plus.

The bar may have been set low, but Clint was certain it could be set lower.

The sound that escaped him as he body slammed into the rock was undignified to say the least, but he was more concerned with getting the air back into his lungs, while not getting blown to pieces by the various streaks of laser-stuff and hail of bullets above him.

Clint realized a little late that voices were yelling at him over the comms. First Natasha, who saw him go down from her position down the block, nearer the institute and the heart of the attack. Earlier, Clint had been there with her, the two of them evacuating the civilians. But that was before explosions started going off and they got separated in the hail of gunfire while Clint had been herding the panicked crowd through the street and Natasha made a final sweep of the building. Then these black-ops guys started swarming, and Clint had been stranded out in the open. There began his running madly and swearing loudly through the street on national television problems.

But then, it was mostly just one voice actually that caught his attention.

“Barton! Fuckin’ answer, jackass. What’s your twenty? You good?” he heard Bucky, grainy and distorted by an explosion, but Clint though he caught an abnormal hint of concern- _maybe_ something _almost_ close to verging on a _second_ of panic- in his tone. But maybe he had another concussion or something.

“Hawkeye, sit rep,” Steve voiced, cool and collected, but just because he was in Captain America mode didn’t mean he stopped giving a shit when Clint ended up bloodied and lying in a ditch.

“Oww,” Clint groaned as he rolled onto his back, still catching his breath. Wincing at the strain of pulled muscles and bruised ribs, he tugged his sidearm from its holster and checked the clip and the safety. His shoulder hurt a bit much and it was a bit too difficult to comfortably shoot a bow while lying in the bottom of a dusty, building-rubble filled, rather large explosion sized hole in the ground. “Hawkeye, reporting,” he rasped. “Consider my situation…” Clint trailed off, thinking and panting for breath as he watched for movement above.  “I dunno, under-fucking-paid,” he grit out between clenched teeth at the pain as he tried to get his legs under him with little success. His ankle throbbed in an unfortunately familiar way that told him walking on it was going to really suck.

“He’s at the corner on Broadway and Portland. I can’t get to him,” Natasha’s voice cut in. “Clint, you need to keep moving. They’ve got a transport Humvee rolling in and a lot of guys pouring out.”

“How many, how close?” Clint asked, slinging his bow over his shoulder and taking a knee to catch his breath before he decided on any probably inadvisable run, duck, weave, and pray plans.

“A dozen or so. Twenty-five yards. They’re starting to fan out.”

“Awesome,” Clint laughed, halfway sarcastic but the other half  amused. “It’s a clown Humvee.”

“Not funny, focus,” Steve interrupted.

“You don’t get it? I can explain it if you w-”

“I get it,” Steve sighed. “Can you get clear?”

“Uh, better odds than that one time in Sao Paulo, less likely than Karachi. I’d put it at a thirty/seventy split.”

“What even-” Bucky started, sounding confused and pissed as hell and cutting himself off with what Clint couldn’t describe as anything other than a frustrated _growl_.

It was sexy as hell too- _aww_ brain, no. No no no.

Clint just about facepalmed himself. He would’ve too, if he’d had a free hand.

“Just stay put and keep your head down,” Bucky ordered, sharp and firm and leaving absolutely no wiggle room for misinterpretation. “I’m on my way.”

“I kind of need your help securing the bridge, Barnes,” Tony remarked, sounding more than a little stressed. The bad guys had set up some sort of vehicle barricade on the adjacent overpass, maybe securing an escape route or maybe just blocking the main route that the local police response had taken. Currently, Stark had his hands full with trying to prevent a bunch of cops who were way out armed from getting blown to bits.

“I’ve got the bridge,” Steve jumped in before Bucky could even respond with something that would be no doubt wanting for patience and witheringly scornful. “Buck, go. Secure Barton, and rally with Romanova at the front gates.”

“Copy that,” he grunted, already well ahead of him.

“And this day started off so well,” Clint griped to no one in particular, crouching low and crawling over rubble as he began assessing the best way to get out of the fish bowl he was in, with the bad guys on potentially any side and more closing in. If he stuck his head up, I’d be like whack-a-mole out there, and he wouldn’t be the guy with the hammer.

Huh, he wished Thor were there. That guy always managed to pull fire and attention away from him, the only maybe third most awesome blonde dude on the team.

He didn’t have long to think it over before Clint twisted around at the sound of rock tumbling and sliding down the slope, gun poised, only to pull it back, swearing to himself as Bucky came vaulting over the edge, skidding down the side in a tumble of loose rocks and dirt as he came to a stop besides where Clint knelt

“Hey, woah, gun,” Bucky observed, voice a lot lower and gentler than whatever Clint was expecting. “Point that somewhere else.”

“I am,” Clint huffed, rolling his eyes. “A little warning next time- ow! The fuck?”

So much for gentle. Bucky didn’t wasted any time, shoving him back on his ass and giving him a thorough once-over for injuries, hands everywhere and eyes narrowed with equal parts suspicion and concern. Ever since Bucky had taken Clint at his word when he brushed off what turned out to be a broken leg and proceeded to carry on with the fight, the guy tended to skip the asking if it hurts stage and going right to the finding out for himself part. He was systematic and wasted no time about it, but he wasn’t unnecessarily harsh or anything.

“Not broken,” Bucky decided regarding Clint’s ribs after he was satisfied with his amount of prodding, ignoring Clint’s squirming and protesting. “Left ankle?” He had noticed immediately how Clint avoided putting weight on it.

“Yep,” Clint relented, figuring they didn’t have time and Bucky wasn’t going to let him go anywhere until he was assured that he wasn’t dying or in need of emergency medevac.

“Broken?”

“Don’t think so.”

“Well, won’t kill you,” Bucky murmured to himself, jaw set and brows pinched as he hesitated for a moment, right when Clint thought he was going to get them moving. Bucky looked up and met Clint’s eyes for a second, and Clint realized just how close he was, their faces mere inches apart as they crouched in the dust and the debris. Bucky lifted his flesh hand to Clint’s jaw, gently and without a word, eyes searching his face.

Clint just blinked back at him, wobbling a little unsteadily as the breath caught in his throat.

Natasha’s voice, sounding strained and more than a little ticked off about something, suddenly interrupted. “Hey fellas, you about out of there yet? Trouble headed your way.”

Bucky cleared his throat, eyes dropping to the ground as the softness in his expression was replaced by a blank slate. “You’re bleeding,” he said hastily, pulling away after he wiped away the blood from a cut at Clint’s temple. “Yeah, out in a sec,” he said over the comms, then turning back to Clint, “let’s go.”

Clint nodded mutely as Bucky pulled him to his feet and helped support his weight as Clint tested out his ankle.

“Um, you have a plan?”

Bucky gave him a skeptical side eye, a little hint of his personality coming back. “I always have an extraction plan.”

“Okay, what-”

“Wait for it, wait,” Bucky said, listening closely to the chaos above them a distance away.

Clint paused for a second, frowning. “I don’t ge-” A series of explosions a short ways away, but close enough to shake the loose rock and debris from the sides of the crater, cut him off. “Oh.”

“Now, let’s go,” Bucky directed, pulling him along.

It was something of a mad dash from there, Clint’s ankle holding up surprisingly well and the explosions in their wake giving them sufficient cover. Clint wasn’t sure what exactly Bucky had done before he slid down into that hole in the ground to haul his sorry ass out, but it was effective.

They worked well together, covering their backs, keeping a sharp eye open for surprises on all fronts without breaking pace. There was a fluidity to it, adaptable, quick, deadly. Not everyone’s particular styles meshed like that. But then, Clint and Bucky got along in just about every way, from compatible fighting styles to complementary dark, dry, and frequently dirty senses of humor.

Clint grinned manically as Bucky bodily threw one of the dark tac-suited agents through a plate glass window of an already fractured and crumbling store front as they made their way back toward Natasha’s location at the end of the block. “Ya know, any other day, this might not be a bad place for a nice leisurely stroll,” Clint commented, sighting over Bucky’s shoulder before firing off two rounds and watching to bodies hit the pavement, clutching their kneecaps. “Barnes, I ever tell you I’m glad you’re such a-”

But Bucky straightened up suddenly, his whole body going rigid as his eyes locked on something in the distance outside the institute’s gates. “The hell-”

Black trucks with familiar red cyrillic lettering had pulled up in front of the building. Agents were congregating alongside them, forming a rough perimeter around the building.

“Oh, Jesus…” Clint saw what caught his attention. This was not good. Not good at all. “Nat, if you’re still in the building, get out. Like right now, if you can. Take the back, we’ll meet you there. Cap, Stark, need backup ASAP. I think the party’s moved to us,” Clint yelled out over the comms, already sprinting off toward her, screwed up ankle be damned.

“Clint, wait!” Bucky called after him, swearing violently and taking off after him.

At the onslaught of confused and increasingly alarmed questions he didn’t have time to answer, Clint shouted, “Everyone shut the hell up- It’s not Hydra, not AIM. I don’t know what they’re doing here bu- aw man, _that_ doesn’t look good.” Clint skidded to a halt across the street from the building that the trucks pulled up in front of, with two agents unloading something from one of the vehicles that was clearly heavy, some sort of large metal cylinder that was high-tech and glowing an uneasy orange-red color from within.

Suddenly Bucky materialized beside him, grabbing Clint by the shoulder and pulling him into the mouth of the side alley before they were noticed. Clint tried to maneuver around the other man, to subtly put himself between Bucky and the object of his loathing, not because he didn’t trust him, but because if Clint were in his shoes, he couldn’t say that he wouldn’t do something ultimately regrettable either. But Barnes was having none of it.

Bucky threw a warning look his way, metal hand grabbing him by the collar and shoving Clint back behind him. “They’re not Hydra,” Bucky repeated over the comms, voice cool and level and expression absolutely unreadable behind that thousand yard stare. He didn’t look like he was about to do something thoughtless and violent though, which was a plus. “It’s the Red Room.”

“Not to be the voice of reason, but Nat, don’t try and take these guys on your own,” Clint asked in his very nicest tone, holstering his weapon and drawing his bow and an arrow from over his shoulder. He winced at the pain the movement caused. “I’m not doubting you could, just please don’t.”

“Hold on,” Tony interjected. “We’re just about cleaned up over here. We’ll be with you in a minute, so please don’t do anything stupid before then.”

“What he said,” Steve echoed.

“They’re moving,” Bucky said, nodding toward the center of activity.

“So am I,” Natasha remarked, her voice cold but also edged with that little hint of a smirk. Just enough of a defiant challenge in her voice to let Clint unmistakably know that he was currently dealing with Natasha ‘hold my beer’ Romanova.

Clint’s shoulders slumped. “Well, fuck me I guess-”

“Brace yourselves, boys.”

Clint was hyper aware of the situation for three or four devastatingly long seconds before the tense silence before the storm was ruptured by the explosion of blinding red and orange fire.

All hell broke loose.

All Clint was aware of next was Barnes yelling something and a heavy weight grabbing his bicep and yanking him away from the wall. Then they were running, Barnes dragging him along at first until Clint caught on with the program and followed his lead. And they weren’t alone. Everyone was running, black uniformed Red Room agents through the smoke and civilians on the periphery, guns blazing and smouldering debris tumbling from the sky as smoke and flames went up from where a good portion of the front of the institute had stood seconds ago.

Clint slammed into Bucky’s back when the man came to a sudden halt in front of him, his arm going out to steady Clint. He bit back a curse, about to ask what the hell Barnes was doing stopping in the middle of the chaos like that when he saw it too.

There was Natasha, some fourty yards away and having a grand old time cutting through the final throngs of agents that came at her. But what she didn’t, or couldn’t, see was the last of the Red Room’s agent gathering a little ways away around that same not-cool orange-reddish glowing metal thing, and the thing was _moving_. The metal cylinder looked like it was spinning, uncoiling, like somebody had just pressed a big ominous red button accompanied by a sticky note with the warning ‘press only in case of emergencies’. And the glow was getting brighter.

This definitely looked bad.

Clint and Bucky exchanged a look, and in that millisecond, decided. Then they were running again. Toward Natasha.

The orange glow was too bright, not natural, and only getting brighter. It seemed closer than it was, until the sickly light was beginning to wash everything out. There was a ringing in his ears.

Clint called out to Natasha when he lost sight of her in the spread of blinding light, but there was only static over the comms. Clint ground to a halt, throwing an arm up across his eyes. He felt Bucky beside him, and reached out for him, his last sensory anchor to reality.

Then the static bled into the dull, throbbing ringing sound that overwhelmed him, and the light bleached everything out in a harsh orange-white glare.  


	2. Chapter 2

“I’m not freaking out,” Clint swore, standing frozen in the middle of the Tower’s med bay. His chest was heaving. He was hyperventilating only a little, but felt like he couldn’t breath regardless of how much oxygen he sucked into his lungs, “Not freaking out. This is fine,” he reasoned, eyes fixed on the far wall, every fiber in him trembling. “This is fine.”

“Clint,” came a very,  _ very _ cautious voice. “It’s okay. It’ll be okay.” Steve stepped oh so slowly in front of him, well out of striking range, hands out like he was approaching a panicky caged animal. In a way, that’s exactly what he was doing.

Everyone else, meaning Tony, Bruce, and Sam, were crowded against the back wall, very much attempting to not draw any attention to themselves. Bucky and Natasha… well.  _ They _ were still in their hospital beds, Barnes sitting frozen and mute in stunned silence on the edge of his, and Natasha, if she was even-  _ if  _ that was even- Natasha was still unconscious.

Clint however, waking after Barnes, had not taken the news so well. 

But then, how the hell was one  _ supposed  _ to take the news that the Red Room had somehow developed some sort of magic-y science  _ bullshit  _ to fucking  _ de-age  _ someone. 

“ _ Not _ freaking out. I’m _ fine _ . I’m  _ fine _ ,” Clint grit out through clenched teeth. He was going to throw up, Yes, he was sure of it. His head was spinning and his insides were churning. Either that or he was just dying. He wouldn’t be surprised if that was the case.

“Clint you’re shock-”

“Nope,” Clint declared. “No, didn’t I just say I’m fine? Because I’m fine  _ Steve _ . Just. Fine. Why the hell wouldn’t I be?” he laughed nervously, rapidly spinning out of control. He still couldn’t force himself to move. He still couldn’t force himself to even  _ look _ at himself. Like this was not his body. He had some master-level fuckery going on in his head, some extreme dissociation and dysphoria and shock all wrapped up in a violent panic attack. He was almost fifteen fuckin’ years too young. None of this was right.

Because when he’d first looked into the mirror, the face he’d seen staring back in abject terror was one he hadn’t seen in a very long time. He was just kid. Maybe nineteen, _maybe_ twenty at the oldest.

“Okay, okay,” Steve hushed, “you’re fine, I get it. But, how about you sit down? Just, let’s everyone take a seat, and we’ll talk about this. Okay?”

“Rogers, if you keep talking to me like a fucking child, I’m gonna stab you in your fucking face,” Clint swore, glaring at the other man who was taking an uncertain step back. 

“Hey, let’s keep violence to a minimum,” Tony suggested, having slid up next to Steve. “But, you are technically a-”

“Tony,” Steve hissed. “Not. Helping.”

Clint leveled his glare at Tony. “Bold words for someone in stabbing range.”

Tony shuffled back a step. “Now listen Barton. I understand you’ve every right to freak the fuck out, but if you want to fix this, you need to calm down.”

“Aneurysms are uncommon in teenagers, but I would recommend calming down anyway just to be on the safe side,” Bruce piped up from the other side of the med bay. 

“Ha. Fuckin’. Ha.” Swallowing and trying his damndest to just breath, Clint swore at them, “all of you shut the fuck up.” To their merit, they did. Another shaky minute passed by. “Now,” Clint began, getting himself under control. “I am going to sit down, and  _ somebody _ is going to tell me  _ exactly  _ why Barnes and I look like we could start a boy band,” he demanded, panting for breath, “and why Natasha,  _ if  _ that’s even her, looks like she’s not even in the fucking  _ double digits _ . Okay?”

Steve nodded reassuringly, but otherwise Clint ignored them. Instead, holding his breath and making himself look down at his feet, he focused on one jerky step in front of the other. The few feet between himself and the blue cotton sheets of the hospital bed he had woken up in where an almost insurmountable obstacle. 

Clint dropped down onto the edge of the mattress, clinging onto the sheets with white knuckles for dear life. He stared down at his hands. He knew they were his. They felt like his, but at the same time, felt all wrong. 

He still saw the faint scar that ran over the knuckle of his thumb from a pocket knife accident when he was twelve. But it was more prominent than it should’ve been, less faded. And the other scars, the one that should’ve been on the inside of his forearm from a knife fight with a bunch of criminal types when he was twenty-three, the one from a bullet that grazed his bicep in Bangalore when he was twenty-eight, the one that was meant to be on his other forearm from the shrapnel blast in Tehran on his thirtieth birthday, the scars from the battle of New York just a few years ago… gone. 

Like they were never there.

Clint slowly came to realize that someone- Tony- was talking to him. It must have been apparent that he wasn’t listening to a word of it thought.

 

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

 

“Okay, it looks like he’s gone right through the manic bit and into the catatonic part,” Bruce noted aloud. “Just give him a minute.”

“Hey, I’m just glad Baby Terminator wasn’t the one to go nuts for a minute there,” Tony remarked, glancing over to where Bucky sat utterly still, glassy-eyed and non-responsive to anything Steve had tried, and very clearly not okay overall.  But, his vitals were stable and constantly monitored by Jarvis. So, when Clint had woken up and realized what had happened, they had elected to let Barnes sit quietly while they handled the more immediate problem.

Steve sent Tony a humbling glare. “Don’t call him that. He’s sitting right there.”

“First of all, i don’t think any of them are actually listening. Secondly, I’ve always called him Terminator, and now he’s a baby. Freaky, I know, and no, it doesn’t make any sense, but it’s all very interesting-”

“Tony,” Same warned, playing arbiter again, “I think the problem Steve has is with how you’re treating this more like an interesting science experiment than a serious and potentially dangerous problem for our friends.”

“Ah, well,” Tony said, shuffling uncomfortably. “Sorry.”

“You’re forgiven if you can explain what the hell is going on,” Steve sighed, taking a seat himself. He wasn’t in the mood to pick any fights. He was exhausted. It had been over twenty-four hours since Boston, and none of them had managed much sleep. 

“It isn’t that simple, Steve,” Bruce explained, staring down at a tablet screen in his hands and scrolling through list of data and charts. “Honestly, we don’t know much of anything.”

Sam pulled out one of the uncomfortable plastic chairs beside Steve and dropped into it. “Well that’s not very reassuring.”

“Just one day isn’t nearly enough time to run the tests and collect the data we’d need to, but I can say that all three of them appear to be in a stable physical condition,” Tony explained.  “Uh, deteriorating mental health notwithstanding. But that  _ is  _ reassuring, because it means we have time to figure this out-”

Jarvis interrupted Tony over the med bay’s speakers. “Sir, Agent Coulson has arrived.”

“Oh finally,” Tony breathed a sigh of relief. “An adult. Just what the situation calls for. Let him in, Jarvis.”

After a moment, the med bay doors opened with a whoosh of air and Phil Coulson cut a striking figure in his usual dark suit as he hurried across the bright white tile. The look of concern that had been etched into his face was almost immediately replaced by genuine surprise as his eyes tracked across the three adjacent beds and their occupants situated against the back wall.

“Coulson, thanks for coming,” Steve said, standing to shake the man’s hand. 

“Yes, of course, I came as quickly as possible but I was out of the country and-” He simply shook his head. “Wow. You weren’t kidding.”

The first thing they had done after leaving Boston was call Fury with a report on the situation to get a SHIELD team on the ground to wrap up the Ren Room mess and to get a SHIELD medical team at the Tower to meet them as soon as the Quinjet touched down. Because he was their liaison of sorts with SHIELD ever since it had been revealed that, surprise, he wasn’t actually dead (and for letting them think he was dead for so long Clint had punched him in the mouth), Fury had informed them that Coulson would be with them shortly. 

“No. Typically of Barton to get himself in this mess, but Barnes and Romanova are usually more responsible than this,” Tony commented, shrugging.

“Are they…?”

“Physically, they’re fine,” Bruce answered the obvious question. “Physically, based on the chromosomal data we’ve collected, Barton and Barnes are somewhere between eighteen and twenty biological years old, and Romanova is somewhere between seven and ten. And as you can see, Barton and Barnes are awake but clearly they need a minute to process, and Romanova hasn’t woken yet.”

Then, Coulson asked what should have been an equally obvious question. “And their memories? Do they still  _ remember _ all the years that are missing?”

There was a moment of awkward hesitation as it downed on them than they didn’t have an obvious answer. “Oh, well...” Tony began, glancing over Bruce’s shoulder at the data as if it held the answers he was looking for. “We can’t exactly know that. Yet.”

Coulson pinched the bridge of his nose in quiet exasperation. Sighing, he turned on his heel and walked across the room to stand in front of Clint, who was still staring unseeingly at the floor, dragging a chair over and sitting in order to put himself at eye level with him.

No one made any move except Tony, who began edging forward to get a better view at whatever was about to happen.

“Clint?” he asked kindly, reaching out to nudge his knee when he got no response. “Clint I know you’ve gone through quite a shock, but I need to talk with you. Please.”

After a moment of bated breath around the room, Clint’s yes flicked up once to meet Coulson’s. 

“Clint, do you know who I am?”

After another moment, a shallow nod.

“Do you remember when we first met?” Coulson asked.

Another nod, and a whisper. “Hospital.”

“Can you describe anything about that time?”

Clint blinked at him, pale and expressionless. “I was handcuffed to the bed.”

“Right,” Coulson nodded. “What about your first international SHIELD assignment?”

This time the answer came more readily. “London office.”

“And your first field operation?”

“Panama.”

“First strike team assignment?”

“Montenegro.”

“And do you know where you are right now?”

“The Tower. New York.”

With that, Coulson appeared to be satisfied. Nodding, he stood and returned to where the others were standing a ways away.

“Well that’s a fairly definitive answer to that question,” Steve said, managing to look and sound exhausted but with a new hint of relief. It was clear why when his eyes were drawn back to Bucky, who was still sitting quietly, staring down at his hands like they weren’t his own. 

“Why the age difference between these two and Romanova?” Coulson asked, apparently not yet finished with his interrogation.

Bruce glanced up, adjusted his glasses. “We’re putting that down to the fact that Barnes and Barton were farther from the concentrated event-”

“And we still don’t know what that was, to be clear. Whatever the Red Room got their hands on…” Tony said, thinking. “Well, it’s clear that it didn’t originate on Earth or with human medical science.”

“I’m still not real clear on that,” Sam added, staring blindly at the scrolling data on Bruce’s tablet without understanding much at all.

Coulson frowned. “Are you thinking it’s another Chitari artifact or another variant of the Tesseract’s energy?” 

“Actually,” Tony jumped in, picking up another tablet, and with a swipe and gesture projected the charts and test results as a holograph for everyone to see. “Whatever technology they used, it left behind a trace pattern that we’re all familiar with now. Similar to the Tesseract, but not.”

“You’re not saying it’s another infinity stone. On  _ Earth _ . In the Red Room’s hands,” Steve asked incredulously, well founded concern evident. 

“Oh man, where is Thor when you need that guy,” Sam complained, dropping his head into his hands.”

“SHIELD will reach out, but contacting him when he’s off-world is difficult to say the least,” Coulson said. “Are you certain this is another infinity stone we’re dealing with?”

“We aren’t certain of anything,” Bruce clarified. “But from what we know of the infinity stones thanks to Thor and our past run-ins with them, the time stone is what makes most sense. I don’t believe that these three are parallel universe alternates of themselves, and no scientific advance yet could possibly achieve physical de-aging.”

“And, when we say ‘de-aging’, we don’t just mean they started getting younger. We mean they’ve been stuck back into their past, younger bodies like their older one’s never existed. How else do you explain the disappearance of scars and recent injuries?” Tony asked, becoming increasingly animated as he spoke. “You just can’t. But then, they also have their memories intact, so some sort of fluctuating time stream is the only explanation we could think of. But, please, if anyone has any other ideas, let’s hear them.”

There was a drawn out moment of silence as that sunk in. 

“I think,” came a quiet, even voice from across the room that made them all turn sharply, “I understand most of that.” Bucky was staring back at them. He hadn’t moved, but he was clearly cognizant of his surroundings. 

Steve rushed over to him, only to stutter to a halt, having no idea what to do or say once he stood next to him. Bucky didn’t provide any answers.

“But, what I don’t understand then,” he continued, “is why I still have this.” The fluorescent white lights of the med bay gleamed off the metal of his left arm as he lifted it aloft a few inches, glancing down and examining it like it was foreign to him. 

“That is, actually, a very good question.” Tony was the first to chime in, hurrying over to Barnes’s side and, after a sharp look from Steve, remembering to ask permission before invading someone’s personal space.

He cleared his throat. “May I?” Tony asked, indicating to the metal arm. Bucky nodded curtly, no more than a callous jerk of his chin as his eyes returned to stare at the far wall, expression blank.

Bucky watched Steve from the corner of his eye. Steve was looking at him with concern, no doubt more for the signs of dissociation he was well aware of but too exhausted to care about than Tony’s examination. In fact, Steve likely would have been less concerned if his best friend had snapped and lost it a little bit like Clint had for a moment, rather than sliding dangerously closely into Winter Soldier territory. Bucky was aware of that. So, that had to count for something, right?

After a minute of cursory inspection to verify what was already clear, that yes, the arm, courtesy of Hydra, as well as the scar tissue was original and unchanged, Tony launched into a long-winded theory. He discussed why, given Barnes’s already messed up timeline, the effects of the Red Room’s device may have altered his biological age and scars in the past decade and a bit, but not injuries from as far back as the 1940s. That led into tangents about why he was still genetically enhanced, which Stark was able to confirm with blood tests he and Banner had already run. But it all devolved into a whirlwind of medical and scientific jargon and a headache of ‘if’s, ‘then’s, and ‘so what’s from there.

Considering that none of what was happening made any sense whatsoever in Bucky’s book, he was surprised by how concisely Stark actually managed to explain it. It left him with two thoughts, really. The first, that he really fucking hated this magic bullshit, a subpoint of that being he really fucking hated the Red Room for more reasons than this. As for the second, he was willing to share with the group.

“So you can fix it, right?” Bucky asked, deadpan and tone leaving no question that the alternative than the desired answer would have dangerous consequences. However, at the hesitant pause his question received, Bucky turned to glare at them in turn. “Do I need to repeat myself?”

“No, Buck,” Steve sighed. “We’re gonna figure this out, okay? I promise.”

He nodded once, jaw set. But his words lost the bitter, dangerous edge.  “Damn straight.”


	3. Chapter 3

“Clint.” 

The voice came from the doorway, quiet but clear. A silhouetted figure was leaning against the doorframe in the dull light emanating down the hallway behind him.

Staring up at the ceiling blindly in the dark, Clint waited for him to go away. He was still wearing his aids,having known sleep wasn’t going to be a thing that was happening anyway. He recognized the voice just fine. But the silhouette, like everything of late, was wrong.

“I know you’re awake,” Bucky said after a moment. 

He sounded tired, resigned. From the corner of his eye, Clint saw him step forward into the room, pushing the door closed until only a dully glowing sliver shone around the edge. Bucky leaned back heavily against the wall, sliding down to the floor.

Clint rolled over, putting his back to Bucky and pulling the pillow tighter to his chest tighter. Was he sulking? Yes. But it was also around nine o’clock, which he felt was late enough that it was well within his rights to lie in his own damn bed on his own damn floor of the damn Tower, and ignore who he damn well chose to.

“You have your ears in?” 

Clint stared defiantly into the darkness, the silence filled with nothing but the distant gentle humming of the Tower’s AC system and his own breathing, not quite steady. Clint felt an inexplicable sense of guilt weighing heavier against his sternum as the seconds added up. 

“Yep,” Clint answered, finally, though he was adamant on keeping his mouth shut from there. He was not doing this. Bucky would get the idea and move on.

He was done talking. It had been going on four days since Boston. He knew that Tony and Bruce and a whole team of SHIELD scientists they were in contact with were running themselves ragged to try and fix this. He knew that Steve was beating himself up over it while simultaneously trying to keep Tony from going completely off the deep end. And he knew that Sam was running on empty trying to keep Steve from doing the same thing. Clint was grateful for them all. He was. But he was done talking about, done with the tests, done with the exhausting routine of poking and prodding and questioning and nobody giving him straight answers. It felt like weeks.

It was going on four days, and pre-pre-adolescent Natasha still hadn’t woken up yet. And nobody had any idea what to expect when she did. If she did.

He felt like he was suffocating.

Sometime around the tenth hour marker, he’d realized that avoiding mirrors and refusing to think too much about it was his best game plan. Around the twenty-fourth hour marker in limbo, he’d taken to slipping away for a couple hours at a time to the few places he knew he could hide for a bit before Tony ordered Jarvis to snitch on him. Most of the time in between, he sat around in med bay, waiting for yet another medical test, or yet another blood sample, or for Natasha to wake up. But sometime around the forty-eighth hour marker, he’d realized seeing Natasha and Bucky like that didn’t help his ‘ignore it hard enough and it might go away’ approach.

“I know you’ve been avoiding me.” 

It wasn’t a question. There was no self pity there, none of the resentment or frustration or even confusion Clint might have expected. It was just an observation.

Clint would’ve prefered that he just be angry.

He exhaled heavily, shoving his face into the pillow with the tiny hope that it might actually suffocate him and the finish the painfully slow, terribly inefficient job that the guilt and growing claustrophobia had started a few days ago. 

He didn’t know why Bucky had slipped into his bedroom that evening, or what he wanted, and if someone had told him a week ago that he would, Clint would’ve laughed himself stupid and also would’ve had to commit some energy to pulling his imagination out of the gutter. Because they weren’t that type of friends. And this  _ certainly _ wasn’t the time.

Clint heard a faint rustle as Bucky got to his feet again, heard the barely audible creak of the hinges on the door. “Okay. Cool. Good talk.”  _ Now  _ the words were sharp. Bitter. Just barely.

He expected him to go just as quietly as he’d come. Instead, a moment passed, and then Clint was assaulted by the too-harsh white glare of the overhead lights turned up to full brightness.

“Oww,” Clint groaned, throwing his arm over his eyes and rolling over in an attempt to hide his face in the mattress. “Jackass,” he hissed, but most of the effect was lost, muffled in the sheets.

“You’re one to talk, buddy. The fuck did I do to you?” Bucky demanded, and yep, there was the frustration making it’s appearance. 

“Nothin’,” Clint insisted, “now le’me alone.” 

He felt the mattress dip beside him as Bucky’s weight dropped onto the edge of the bed. “It really is your least desirable quality,” he laughed dryly. “The disappearing act, the brooding, shovin’ everybody else away-”

“-oh fuck off,” Clint swore, throwing his arm out blindly and shoving at him. 

Bucky just swatted him away. “Ya know, you’re not the only person in this place whose got a reason to be pissed. Or freaked out.  _ Everyone _ is. And if you’re really set on the sulking thing, you could just man up and say it to my face, ‘Hey Buck, how ‘bout you fuck off for a while’, because that’d be one thing. But this? This sucks. Okay? It sucks,” Bucky said wryly, standing and making to leave. “So fuck you too, buddy.” 

Swearing, Clint rolled over and threw the nearest pillow at Bucky’s retreated back. “Hey, I didn’t ask you to barge in here,” he said irritably. “Don’t get pissed at  _ me _ for not wantin’a talk.”

Bucky spun around, glaring, a frown plastered on his face. “Didn’t seem like you were ever wanting to talk,” he shot back, voice raised.

“What are you? My babysitter? Damn, didn’t think we were  _ that  _ young-”

Bucky rolled his eyes hard. “Well I didn’t think you actually  _ were  _ a fuckin’ child, but  _ apparently _ -”

“Take a look in the mirror pal,” Clint spat back, throwing his legs off the bed and jumping to his feet.

Bucky took a step toward him, shoulders squaring off. “Don’t make this about that- ‘cause it’s  _ not _ -”

“What the hell do you want from me?” Clint yelled, pissed off and all twisted up inside and absolutely willing and a little bit wanting to take a punch for it. 

But Bucky froze mid step. A beat passed, and another. His jaw was clenched, working like he wanted to say something, his eyes narrowed accusatorily at him, breathing sharply. Bucky exhaled slowly. “Don’t fuck it up, Barton,” he finally said, though the anger had melted from the words. All that was left was a warning, genuine, tinged with just enough misery to make Clint think twice. “Don’t.”

Clint laughed bitterly, painfully, falling back onto the edge of his bed and dropping his head into his hands. He scrubbed at his eyes hard, swearing under his breath. 

“Everything’s fucked up, I  _ get  _ that. Both of us,” Bucky said, motioning between them, “Natasha… we all got fucked over. Fine. Shit happens, Clint. You don’t need to make it worse.”

Clint felt like he was under microscope, felt like Bucky’s eyes were tearing right through him. “Look, I’m sorry-” he started to say, but suddenly he was a lot more emotional that he was two seconds ago. His voice broke, and he choked himself off with a surprised sound.

Bucky raised his brows in surprise, a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth.

“Holy hell,” he breathed out, halfway to horrified. He cleared his throat. “What octave was that?” 

Bucky barked out a laugh. He took a breath. Shaking his head, Clint could almost see him count to ten in his head and make the decision to let the tension slip away. Slowly, he came back around and dropped down onto the bed beside him. 

“You’re still freaking out, huh?” Bucky asked, begrudgingly sympathetic.

Clint huffed out a laugh in disbelief, wiping the sleeve of his sweatshirt across his eyes. It didn’t fit quite right. Nothing did. But it was his longest lived sweatshirt and his favorite and he’d been wearing it for the past two days. “How are you not?” 

Bucky thought about that for a second before shrugging. “I dunno. I’ve not looked my age in a century.”

Oh. Clint considered that for a moment. “Well, now I think you’ve got Steve beat for the youngest looking hundred-somethin’ year old to ever exist on the face of the planet,” Clint said, the corner of his mouth upturned in a weak smile.

“Yay me,” Bucky sighed, smiling faintly regardless. “Afraid I’ll look a little out of place in the retirement home.”

Clint gave him a sympathetic pat on the shoulder. “Could be worse.”

Bucky glanced over at him incredulously. “How’s that?”

Clint blinked at him blankly. “Well I dunno,” he said like the question was ridiculous. “But I do know that everything, and I mean everything, can always get worse. Rock bottom is just a myth, my friend.”

“Oh, you have a lot of personal experience with that, do you?” Bucky asked with a sly smirk.

Clint flopped back on the bed, spread-eagle. “Ha. Since you ask-”

Clint’s word’s died in his mouth, along with the devious grin spreading across Bucky’s face, as the flashing red warning light streaked across the room.

Bucky jumped to his feet. “The fuck?” 

Clint just groaned in annoyance. There was something to be said about this- karma maybe, or irony, or just really bad timing. 

Jarvis’s voice came over the Tower’s speakers. “Agent Barton, Sergeant Barnes, there is an emergency in the medical ward. Mr. Stark and Captain Rogers request your immediate presence.”

Clint surged into a sitting position, suddenly feeling sick to his stomach as the worry he’d been suppressing came crashing back, gnawing at his insides. “What happened? Is it Natasha? Is she okay? Jarvis?”

The AI was not incredibly informative. “I’m afraid I have very few answers at the moment. Mr. Stark would like me to stress the urgency of the matter.”

“Let’s go,” Bucky said. Without any further warning, he grabbed Clint by the wrist and hauled him unceremoniously to his feet. Clint lurched forward, stumbling over his own feet for a second, but then they were running, flinging the door open, down the hallway, nearly hurtling the couch that was in the way and crashing into the elevator.

They might have been the fastest, smoothest elevators that weren’t on the market, but it was the slowest elevator ride in Clint’s life.

“I’m sure everything’s fine,” Bucky muttered on the way down, fingers tapping nervously against his thigh. “Tony overacting, as usual.”

Clint didn’t say anything. When they hit the right floor, he was shoving through the opening doors the moment they were barely wide enough. Bucky was right behind him. 

The Tower’s emergency warning lights weren’t on in the white tile hallway, leaving only the annoyingly bright fluorescent lights and the sterile chemical smell of antiseptic. They rounded the corner at a jog, making for the floor-to-ceiling glass walls of the central ward. Nothing immediately appeared amiss. 

Nothing, that was, until they heard the screaming. 

Clint and Bucky tore off down the hallway. It was shrieking, really. Hysteric and indecipherable. On and off, from loud and panicked when they first heard it, to a quieter, low sobbing. 

It sent Clint’s heart skittering inside his chest.

Bucky burst through the heavy metal doors to the central ward where the three of them had first been under observation, and where Natasha remained. Clint came immediately after, stumbling to avert his course after Bucky ground to a dead halt a few feet inside.

It was difficult to know where to focus at first. The ward was in disarray. In the back quadrant, wheeled beds had been shoved about, chairs were overturned, at least one cart had been toppled, draws ripped open and it contents of medical supplies strewn across the tile floor, and various equipment- heartrate monitors, the cardiac arrest cart, the rack from which the saline bags and IVs hung- had been knocked and toppled and thrown about the room. 

And in the middle of it all, a little girl huddled in the corner, wide, terrified and mistrusting eyes frantically jumping between faces and exits from behind matted red hair sticking to her tear streaked face. 

Steve and Tony were there also, standing well back and making themselves as nonthreatening as possible so as not to startle her, while simultaneously blocking the exits, cornering her.

“Oh hell,” Clint breathed out. This was not how they were all hoping this would go. 

Tony glanced quickly over his shoulder at the sound of their entrance. “About time,” he all but stage whispered, nodding vigorously with his head in the direction of the small child Natasha huddled in the corner as if it were even possible that they hadn’t seen her and taken in the situation yet.

But it wasn’t Natasha. It was just a child, small and frightened and bleeding from where she had ripped the IV from her arm, in a strange place surrounded by strange adults (and now pre-adults) like she had never seen them before. This was not Natasha. This was the little girl indoctrinated by the Red Room who would grow up to be a lot of things, only the last and most recent one being the friend he knew. 

“What the hell happened?” Bucky asked slowly, patiently, voice low- any sudden movements or noises were clearly inadvisable. 

“Natasha woke up-” Steve began, tone equally calm. 

“Clearly,” Clint muttered, rolling his eyes. “What did you  _ do _ to her?”

“Nothing,” Steve insisted, pausing when the child shuffled. “She woke up, didn’t like Jarvis,  _ really  _ didn’t like the alarm when she bolted for the doors, she’s terrified of us, wrecked everything in arm’s reach, and I don’t think she’d understood a word we’ve said this whole time trying to calm her down,” Steve explained quickly.

“I think she’s been babbling in Russian,” Tony added. “Screaming mostly, which is wholly unnerving and unhelpful.” 

“She doesn’t remember you guys? This place? Anything?” Clint asked, butterflies inside his stomach making him sick, feeling every inch of his vibrate with nervous energy. His hands were shaking, almost unnoticeably, but he did notice, and he couldn’t make them stop.

“Well it doesn’t appear that way,” Tony snapped back, low and frustrated, though he clearly bit back any further unhelpful sarcastic retort.

“This is ridiculous,” Bucky muttered. Then, a little louder, “She’s not a wild animal. She’s a child.” Then he was stepping forward, cautiously and slowly maneuvering around Tony and pausing when Natasha’s eyes landed on him.

Her face twisted, into confusion, hope, frustration, a flurry of micro-expressions as she froze, studying his face as he crept toward her. He stopped some ten feet away from her when she began to push herself further into the wall, drawing away from his approach. Bucky crouched down, kneeling on the floor.

When he spoke next, it was Russian. The language came easier to him, far more fluently than it did to Clint. He knew enough to get by. Enough to understand what Bucky was saying, and from the quiet breath, the wide eyes and look of recognition and flash of hope that crossed Natasha’s face, she did too.

“ _ Natalia, it’s alright, you’re alright. No one is going to hurt you. I promise. I won’t let them, _ ” Bucky said, clearly and slowly with all the confidence in the world. He looked fiercely protective in that moment, Clint realized. It suited him. 

She shuffled slightly, rotating against the wall to better face him, swiping a hand across her forehead to pull her tangled hair away from her eyes. Still she remained mute, eyes trained on Bucky suspiciously. She was clearly relieved, at least in part, to see him. Like she didn’t fully know him, but knew she was supposed to.

Then her eyes darted back across Steve and Tony, none of that same hesitation there, only rising panic. Clint stayed far back behind them, once again feeling like he couldn’t move his own feet, partially obstructed from her view. His heart was pounding against his chest, surely loud enough to fill the whole, now nearly silent room. He’d felt like the last few days he’d been walking on eggshells, waiting for another panic attack to hit him like a trainwreck. And this was it. He was too terrified of how she would react to him if she saw him properly, if his best friend would even  _ know _ him.

Bucky followed her eyes. “ _ Do you want them to leave, Natalia? _ ” He paused, watched her glance between the two men, nodding to her encouragingly. 

Then, finally, she nodded. It was a tiny jerky gesture, her chin already tucked tight against her chest and her arms wrapped around her knees pulled in close. But she responded, which was something. 

“Steve, Tony,” Bucky called out a little louder without turning to address them. “Out. Now.” they didn’t protest, slowly backing away and toward the door. “ _ They’re going _ .  _ What about him? _ ” Bucky asked Natasha, in Russian again. He tilted his head in Clint’s direction.

Natasha’s eyes fixed on him for the first time, at first a little startled like she hadn’t noticed him, and Clint froze, drawing in a quick breath and unable to let it go. She pinched her brows, face contorted with confusion again, though it was short lived. Slowly, unsurely, she shook her head once. 

“ _ Clint, come here. _ ” Bucky instructed, sticking to the language she understood. 

Oh wow. He was not ready for this, for moving forward, for forcing his legs to cooperate. His head was spinning a little bit now. Yes, he was still freaking out. But then how the hell was he expected to adjust to any of this in three days? It was exhausting, living in a near constant fight-or-flight mode, and now he was almost certain he was on the verge of one final big mental health crisis. He was-

“Clint,” Bucky called out a little more forcefully, but when he finally turned to lock eyes with Clint, it was softer, not without sympathy. “ _ Come here. _ ” He reached out toward him, motioning him over. Natasha’s eyes were darting between the two of the them the whole while, watching silently, curiously, but still cautious.

Clint started forward on unsteady legs. He would have been more concerned with appearing calm and collected and nonthreatening if he hadn’t already figured he’d looked like the least imposing person in the room, Jarvis included. If for just once in his life he could not be a wreck of a human being in front of Bucky Barnes, that would be fantastic. 

He took a stabilizing breath, crouching down beside Bucky. He really didn’t know how Bucky had maintained a level head this entire time. “ _ Hey Tasha. _ ” He offered her a weak smile. “ _ You don’t really remember any of us, do you _ .” 

It wasn’t so much a question. Bucky shot him a warning look, but Natasha stared on, sniffling quietly, confusion all over her face as she so clearly was focusing intently, trying to remember, tears pooling in her eyes again. 

He hushed her gently, scooting toward her slowly, pausing when she pulled back a fraction, and moving toward her again until he was closer, only a few feet away. He stopped there though. He wasn’t going to get any closer. He hushed her gently, as softly as he could manage. “ _ That’s okay. Everything will be okay. I’ve got you, I’ve got you _ ,” he cooed, reaching out to her with both hands in an invitation for her to close the rest of the distance. That was her choice.

She studied him closely. Clint thought they were going to have to sit there like that forever, until suddenly it was as if a switch went off in her head. And she made a decision. Suddenly, so quickly it had Clint flinching back, Natasha had gotten her feet under her and launched herself across the few feet that divided them. 

His arms went around her automatically as she glued herself against his chest, her tiny thin hands buried in the fabric of his sweatshirt, clinging tight. She hid her face against his shoulder, her whole body trembling softly in his arms. “Oh, god, Tasha,” he murmured against her hair. “What have they done to you.”

Clint nearly jumped when Bucky materialized over his shoulder. He knelt down beside them, his flesh hand softly stroking the back of her head. “ _ I know you don’t like this place _ ,” he said softly, his hand on the back of her head protectively as she sniffled into Clint’s sweatshirt. “ _ It’s too much like that room, I know. Do you want to leave, Nat- _ ”

“ _ Don’t leave _ ,” Natasha interjected, turning away from Clint’s shoulder to face Bucky. Her cheeks were wet, her eyes and face red and puffy. She gripped Clint tighter, scared he was going to let go. “ _ Don’t leave _ ,” she repeated more forcefully, desperate and scared and breaking Clint’s heart. He wrapped his arms around her tighter.

“Shh,” Bucky hushed her. His gaze flicked to Clint’s for a moment, too quickly for Clint to register anything but the bright-eyed concern. “ _ It’s alright, Solnishka. You’re safe. We won’t leave you. _ ”

Natasha hid her face back against Clint’s sweatshirt as he rocked her ever so slightly, tucking her head under his chin. He glanced at Bucky, having no idea what to do next. The only thing he did know was that, first, his heart was thoroughly torn in two, and second, if anyone ever tried to harm this traumatized child, he would rip off their face and feed it to them. 

Clint closed his eyes, took a deep breath, calming his jittery nerves. He glanced up though when he felt Bucky’s hand at his elbow, a stabilizing pressure. Somewhere between watching the set of Bucky’s jaw to the cold ice behind his eyes, Clint knew Bucky had come to much the same conclusion about responding to threats with extreme prejudice. 

He nodded reassuringly at Clint though, could probably hear his goddamn pulse still racing, then tilted his head toward to door. Clint nodded in agreement.

With one hand migrating to Clint’s lower back, the other at his elbow perhaps needlessly- though never unwelcomingly- helping him to keep his balance, Bucky guided him to his feet and through the doors, the child secure in his arms.

“ _ Where are we going? _ ” Clint asked quietly.

“ _ Anywhere but here. _ ”


	4. Chapter 4

“Hey,” Clint whispered gently, nudging Bucky’s flesh arm that was draped off the couch cushion, his fingers hovering just over the carpet. His other arm was folded over his abdomen, his hand resting loosely on top of the  _ finally  _ sleeping Natasha curled up on his chest. 

Clint nudged him again, a little more firmly this time. Bucky started with a jolt, inhaling sharply as his eyes flew open and making as if to sit up before realizing the child sleeping on top of him, and aborting the movement. “Hmm?” he hummed, dropping his head back into the cushion and blinking the drowsiness from his eyes. Bucky turning his head to look at Clint, who had knelt down beside the couch.

“Sorry,” he mostly mouthed, wincing sympathetically. The guy looked exhausted. For as much as he’d seemed to keep himself together throughout the whirlwind of the past few days- far better than Clint knew he himself did, anyway- it had still taken a toll. 

“Hmm whaddya want?” he murmured, letting his eyes drift closed again for a moment.

“Steve and Sam finished with the room for her,” Clint explained quietly. 

While Tony and Bruce had been hitting the books, reviewing all of their data and medical results for the last few hours since Natasha had woken up with no memories made past the age of seven or eight, with Tony sending Jarvis to scour the internet for any and all literature on the best care for traumatized children, Sam and Steve had set about extreme childproofing the guest bedroom on Clint’s floor. 

She had already demonstrated that she didn’t trust or very much like anyone but Clint and Bucky apparently, and had reacted with another outburst of angry tear-streaked screaming and lashing out at anyone and anything when faced with the notion of being separated from either of them. And they weren’t about to leave her unsupervised on her own floor, certainly not when considering they had no idea how many various weapons the adult Natasha had squirreled away, or where she had hidden them. (Clint already had to make a thorough sweep of his floor, retrieving and digging out anything and everything weaponlike and potentially dangerous and putting it under lock and key.) And then, Bucky was still sharing floor space with Steve, having not been accounted for in the original designs of the tower and having never found cause or reason to go to the trouble of securing his own. Plus, none of them may have been child psychiatrists or head shrinks, but they knew enough to say that something was clearly wrong.

Not even Clint or Bucky knew too much about Natasha’s childhood. Bucky knew the most about the Red Room, it’s tactics, how it ‘trained’ operatives- children- to destroy by destroying them in turn, but most of it was generalized knowledge. What happened to her exactly, and what happened before… most of that only she knew.

Clint knew a little about the kinds of horrors you’d have to subject a child to in order to create the kind of raw fear he saw in her eyes earlier, but still, she kept her secrets. 

So the extreme childproofing began in earnest. They’d added a lock that works from both sides of the door, drilled down the air vent cover, screwed coverings over the electrical outlets, taken out the mirror, the glass coffee table, and anything else that was breakable or dangerous if broken, removed the tall chest of drawers and some other furniture capable of crushing a tiny seven year old if capsized, added a plush bean bag or too from the media room instead, and scoured every inch of the room for anything even remotely dangerous, sharp, throwable, breakable, or any other adjective they deemed too much of a risk.

Bucky sighed heavily, resigning himself to the fact that he needed to get up. He stared up at the ceiling of the common room, the lights off, the soft grey atmosphere only lit from the city lights below radiating dimly through the floor to ceiling windows and from the subdued yellow light that never quite turned off over the elevator. 

“Okay,” he said, voice low, finally edging backward to prop himself up partway against the armrest, examining how best to go about moving without waking her.

“Want me to take her?” Clint offered, nodding toward the blanket-swaddled bundle of scrawny limbs and tumbling, tangled red hair. 

“If you can without waking her up,” Bucky mumbled, making minute adjustments to slowly pull her still clinging arms off of him. 

“Yeah, I got it,” Clint assured him, gently tucking the blanket she was already wrapped up in around her, leaning over Bucky a little awkwardly to cradle her, getting his arms under her, and lifting her easily to rest against his chest, her head tucked neatly against his collar. He shushed her quietly when she stirred, bouncing lightly at his knees as if she were an infant. It still felt right though, and she settled back down in his arms, so he saw no reason to stop.

Clint looked back to Bucky, seeing him sitting upright on the couch and watching him quietly. 

He felt heat flush his face, glancing away and turning his back to Bucky for a moment, grateful for the dim lighting. “What’re you lookin’ at,” he muttered, glancing back at Barnes.

A moment passed before he answered, only shaking his head, saying “nothin’,” when he did. Bucky rose to his feet silently, maneuvering around Clint in the narrow alley between the coffee table and couch, brushing closely as he did so, his hand a fleeting pressure at the small of Clint’s back in a way that only prolonged the warm flush of Clint’s cheeks. 

Clint cleared his throat quietly, turning his back on Bucky and making for the elevator. He supposed he expected Barnes to depart for the floor he shared with Steve, but it came and went. He figured then that maybe he was headed for the range, or the gym. That maybe he felt like shooting things or beating the hell out of inanimate objects, because goodness knows Clint could’ve used some of that unhealthy coping at just about any point these last few days. But no. 

When the doors glided open on Clint’s floor, Bucky was the shadow at Clint’s shoulder, an almost unnoticeable soft pressure resting at his lower back again, guiding him out through the dim greyness of the Tower at night. Clint wasn’t about to protest. He also wasn’t about to mention just how ridiculously, embarrassing touch starved that fleeting, ‘not enough and at the same time too far over the line he had set in the sand’ pressure reminded him he was. 

He shoved the weird feeling down ruthlessly, trampling it and any not okay thoughts or questions it might conspire to bring about. Instead, he focused on not jostling the sleeping bundle of traumatized child nestled against him in his arms. 

Bucky got the door to Natasha’s newly renovated room for him, guiding him inside. He also stepped past him to pull the bed sheets back, waiting patiently for Clint to ever so slowly and carefully deposit Natasha’s tiny sleeping form into them, watching silently as Clint drew up the blankets over her and tucked her in protectively. Finally, Clint stood upright, examining his work. 

“Right,” he said, crossing his arms and nodding, satisfied. “I have no idea what to do know.”

Without turning to look, Clint felt Bucky press up, just barely, behind him, looking over his shoulder. It made his skin prickle just barely, fighting the shiver that ran down his spine. 

“You an’ me both,” Bucky muttered, voice low in his ear. 

Fuck, he was way too tired. Way too physically, mentally, and emotionally exhausted for this. He felt stretched thin, and as a result, there were a million little cracks breaking through the numerous barriers he’d constructed, the numerous lines in the sand he’d drawn, all to maintain all necessary social propriety, to preserve the bro code, to prevent himself from flirting with and god forbid making a move on Bucky Barnes. Fuck fuck fuck, fuck him, fuck him, oh why fuckin’ why goddamnit, fuckfuckfuck. 

“Well,” Bucky sighed, by all appearances completely unaware of the mantra of curses and self-admonishments echoing around in Clint’s head. “If we leave, an’ she wakes up, she’s probably gonna flip her lid again. That’s…” he trailed off, exhaling heavily. “That’s probably somethin’ we should avoid.”

“Yeah,” Clint agreed, crossing his arms tighter. “Probably.”

“So,” Bucky started again, “we stay I guess.”

Clint sighed, shoulders falling heavily. “Yeah, I guess.” He continued staring at the tiny shape curled up under the blankets and comforter in the middle of the comparatively massive king sized bed. “Okay, hold on, be right back,” he muttered, scribbing at his eyes tiredly as he turned, moving around Bucky, disappearing out the door.

He reappeared a moment later, throwing one of the pillows in hand at Barnes as he did so. Bucky grunted muted thanks in return, accepting the bundled blanket Clint tossed at him as well, and dropped right down onto the floor beside the bed where he stood. Hell, when you learned to sleep in the back of a cramped moving humvee or carrier jet, when you could sleep in a damp warehouse in a city under constant shell fire, or catch a few hours lying on the freezing rock of a cave in Afghanistan, a secure bedroom floor with a pretty damn soft carpet was nothin’. They’d both certainly slept in worse places.

With the bed pushed into one corner, and the dressers and bean bag chairs occupying most of the space to the one side of the already kind of small room, there wasn’t a whole lot of floor space to be had. Clint examined his options, considering just how bad the inevitable crick in his neck would be if he collapsed into one of the bean bag chairs, when he felt a no-nonsense tug at his ankle that nearly brought him to the floor, Bucky having apparently made up his mind for him. 

“Get off ’a me,” he muttered, shaking Bucky’s grip off his ankle, though he relented and dropped down to the floor, comfortable enough on the soft shag carpet with the over-stuffed pillow and blanket he’d robbed from his bed. He’d left a good foot of space between him and Barnes, curling up inward tightly, not that Bucky seemed at all concerned with personal space or boundaries or any of the like. 

No. Instead, Clint felt him shift right up close to his side, the heat radiating off him and against Clint’s turned back the most welcoming, worst temptation he’d ever experienced. 

Fuck it. He just wanted to sleep. It was well past midnight, and he just wanted to sleep. On the bed to one side of him was his best friend, who was now a child, all levels of messed up, with no memory of him beyond some sort of implicit trust, who he just wanted to protect. To fix. And on the other side of him was his other best friend, now possibly the world’s sulkiest, most deadliest, maturest nineteen or twenty year old, who was also right up there on his level in terms of all manner of messed up, who he just wished he didn’t have totally inappropriate, not very bro-like feelings about. 

And fuck it. He just wanted to sleep.

Clint closed his eyes tight, burying his face into the pillow and pulling the blanket round him tight. 

He had no reason to believe that the next day would be any easier than the last.

 

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

 

Clint woke up slowly, the kind of ‘drifting through the cobwebs’ waking up without any really awareness of where he was, the kind where he forgot the stress of everything that had happened recently and didn’t have a single thought or desire to get up or to shake the sleep off more thoroughly.

He tried to burrow closer to the solid warmth he was partly draped over, arms splayed and tangled in blankets and the solid weight across his lower back. He nuzzled his face against it, sighing contentedly. It was then that he registered the low chuckle, its vibrations and the slight shifting beneath him. 

Then, of course, it hit him. Kind of like the falling sensation that brings a dream to an abrupt halt. Except more like a hit by a car, ‘oh shit’ sensation that sent him jerking awake, pushing Bucky’s arm off of him and knocking his head into the wall as he scrambled ungracefully backward. He scrubbed the sleep from his eyes, blinking hard and inhaling deeply a couple times.

“Sorry,” he mumbled, now fully aware he had cuddled up against Bucky when he was sleeping. And not just pressed up against him, lacking any sort of personal space cuddling, no. It was master level, half draped across him, clinging like a fuckin’ octopus cuddling that would be more than embarrassing enough to send Clint fleeing from the room if anyone else saw of if Bucky had seemed to give a shit.

Instead, he just shrugged noncommittally from where he was still quite comfortably stretched out on the carpet. “S’fine,” he mumbled, exhaling deeply and slowly, reaching his arms back and arching off the ground slightly as he stretched, sweatpants sinfully low over his hips and shirt riding up over smooth planes of muscle.. Clint’s stared for a second before nearly smacking himself, twisting his head away and forcing himself to look anywhere but there.

He stared up at the ceiling, cursing himself belligerently in his head. When his eyes fall back down however, Barnes had settled back down like a decent respectable human being, and Clint noticed that there was another pair of eyes in the room, staring widely, curiously, silently. 

“Oh?  _ Good morning, Tasha. Did you sleep alright? _ ” He asked, the Russian syllables falling not quite smoothly off his tongue in his sleep-addled, Bucky Barnes preoccupied state.

She nodded mutely, though Clint could barely tell from how she was practically buried in the heavy folds of the much oversized sweatshirt Clint had shed the night before. The only words he had actually heard her speak where the desperate pleas for them not to leave her, which were a little too heart wrenching to think about. 

“ _ Well, that’s good _ ,” Clint sighed, flopping back down onto the carpet.

“ _ She’s been up since before I was _ ,” Bucky added, rolling over onto his stomach and dragging a pillow over to bury his face into.

“ _ And how long has that been? _ ” Clint asked innocently, studying the ceiling intently and managing to very studiously avoid Bucky’s gaze when he turned to look at Clint.

He shrugged awkwardly from where he was lying. “ _ About an hour _ .”

Clint choked on air. “An hour?” he blurted out, indignant and at least a little bit humiliated that Bucky hadn’t shoved him off of him as soon as he’d woken up. “You coulda just shoved me off ‘a you, ya know,” he huffed, turning onto his side with his back to Barnes, partly because he was pissed, but mostly because he  _ wished  _ he was just pissed instead of so embarrassed.

“Hmm,” Bucky hummed, contemplating it easily. He was not at all put off, and clearly not taking that matter as personally as Clint was. “Didn’t see a reason to. Didn’t wanna wake you up.”

Clint snorted in annoyance, still refusing to turn around and face him. There was too much light in the room spilling in even through the dimmed windows, and he was certain the flush across his cheeks would be too obvious. “Didn’t see a reason to,” he mocked, pulling a face even though no one could see.

Bucky propped himself up on his elbows to look over at him, eyebrows knitted in confusion. When he spoke, there was just a dash of annoyance in his tone. “Look, I said it wasn’t a big deal. Get over yourself, Barton.”

Clint was going to respond with something snappy and probably ultimately regrettable when a tiny frustrated sound from on top of the bed demanded both of their attentions. 

Natasha was scowling, eyes darting between them suspiciously. Confusion and frustration was written all over her face, her arms likely crossed inside the swaths of fabric she was swimming in. It would be kind of adorable if both Clint and Bucky weren’t just a little bit terrified of the smallest thing setting her off again. 

“ _ We were talking about how funny Clint is when he sleeps _ ,” Bucky was quick to fill her in on their quick bout of English. “ _ He doesn’t like it much _ .”

She studied them both for another moment, but then gave a tiny, resolute nod, apparently satisfied. She babbled something quick and quiet in Russian that Clint didn’t quite catch.

“ _ Did she just call me a fish? _ ” he asked, deadpan. Natasha buried her small smile in her hands, the much too long sleeves flapping about her. It made Clint’s heart soar a little bit.

“ _ Starfish _ ,” Bucky corrected, grinning smugly. He clarified in English. “She said you sleep like a starfish.”

“ _ Great _ .” Clint huffed out a breath, jumping to his feet. “ _ Okay _ ,  _ time to get up. Do you want something to eat? _ ”

She hesitated, looking down before nodding slightly. Guiltily. Damnit. Clint stopped himself from frowning at that, swallowing the harsh feeling down instead for fear she might think it was directed at her. 

“ _ Alright, let’s go, _ ” Clint said cheerily. “ _ Want a ride? _ ” 

Natasha nodded more enthusiastically at that, reaching up to him. Clint scooped her up, swimming head to toe as she was in his pilfered sweatshirt, and finding her scrawny legs, swung her up onto his shoulders with a secure grip on each of her ankles. “ _ Quit squirming _ ,” Clint complained as Natasha kicked against his shoulders, her sleeves pushed up and her hands burying into his hair. “ _ Now who’s the fish- quit wiggling around up there _ ,” he pleaded with her, reaching up to poke her belly as only giggled harder.

That was okay with him. If it was the only thing he managed to do right that morning, but he could make her laugh, that was alright by him.

Clint turned toward the door, which Bucky asked Jarvis to unlock. Jarvis was under strict orders to not unlock the door for Natasha for any reason except dire emergency, like the room is on fire type of emergency. They couldn’t have her running about the Tower. Jarvis also wasn’t supposed to communicate- no talking over the speakers, no lights, no alarms- either, on account of how poorly she’d reacted last time. But hey, an invisible AI that controlled the Tower was a little difficult for anyone to get used to. Clint wasn’t going to hold that against her.

Breakfast went smoothly enough. The tiny Natasha-to-be nibbled at just about anything that was put in front of her, though she didn’t vocalize any preferences or requests of her own, even as much as Bucky tried to nudge and prompt and persuade and haggle with her to say anything, anything at all. 

Even when Tony and Bruce walked in, both looking exhausted and not too aware of anything if it wasn’t between them and the coffeemaker, she didn’t freak out. She scooted to the edge of her seat at the counter, dropping to the floor and making a beeline for Clint as he was closest- to halfway hide, halfway just put him between the unfamiliar people in the room and herself. 

“ _ Now, stop that, _ ” Clint said, something close to stern. He waved a finger at her, other hand on hip. She just blinked up at him with a little defiant pout. Reaching down suddenly, Clint snatched her up, lifted her, and just as suddenly plopped her down on the edge of the counter. “ _ They’re our friends. And they’ve been trying to help us. _ ”

She didn’t respond. Not with words. Instead it was with an increasingly frustrated tick of her jaw, eyes narrowing suspiciously as she glanced across the room at them. She looked back to Clint expectantly, arms crossed. Apparently he was supposed to know what that meant. When he didn’t, she grew increasing scornful.

“ _ I don’t know what you want from me _ ,” Clint said shaking his head. 

She glared at him, feet kicking angrily against the counter. A frustrated noise escaped the back of her throat. 

“ _ Use your words, Solnishka _ ,” Bucky chided, fetching two clean mugs from the cabinet and walking over to start a fresh pot of coffee.

If it was possible, that just made her even angrier. She shook her head furiously, her loose curls a disheveled mess and mouth a harsh flat line. Sighing, Clint reached out to her, moving to put his hands on her shoulders to calm her down and stop her vehement twisting back and forth.

That just made her lash out. Suddenly she was flailing violently, striking out and clawing at Clint with aggression that took him by complete surprise. She was no longer mute either, complementing her sudden burst of violence with a broken, wordless scream some place between angry and incredibly frustrated and at the same time panicked and afraid.

Clint tried to grab her wrists and stop her, afraid she was going to hurt herself. He yelped in surprise and pain, blood dotting his skins as she raked her nails over his forearm, gouging deeply.

Bucky was at his side almost immediately, though he hesitated, unsure of whether to attempt to separate them of grab her or reach out to Clint.

Clint surged forward, wrapping his arms around her torso firmly and pulling her flailing, kicking, and screaming away from the counter and into the air in an attempt to subdue her. “ _Natasha,_ _please stop, please stop, it’s okay_ ,” he repeated in Russian, pleading with her to stop her struggling.

“Do you want me to-” Bucky started, though he wasn’t able to finish the thought.

Natasha’s teeth clamped down over his wrist, biting hard. “Ow-  _ fuck _ ,” Clint cried out, a string of curses tumbling from his mouth as he doubled over in pain. “Gedoff me you cannibal,” he growled through the pain. 

But she didn’t let up. Not immediately. Clint tried to shake her, only succeeding in freeing himself as Bucky wrapped his metal arm around her, taking her weight and pulling her away. Bucky grappled with her, sinking to his knees to better pin her in his lap. He was at an advantage with the knock-off brand super soldier serum still in effect and the metal arm that she tried to claw at wildly as he kept his flesh and blood arm well away from her gnashing teeth.

“ _ Won’t you please calm down, Natalia _ ,” Bucky pleaded with her through grit teeth. A frustrated scream, painful and almost sobbing, split the air. She only flailed more violently, her whole body shaking. 

By this point, both Tony and Bruce had come over to their aid, but there was little they could do to help. If they came any closer to her, they knew they were likely to only make it worse. 

“ _ Alright then. Alright. It’s alright _ ,” Bucky cooed, flesh hand stroking over the back of her head comfortingly as much as he could while still pinning her against his chest tightly, restricting her flailing limbs. “ _ I’ve got you, Solnishka _ .”

Through her mess of hair, matted and sticking to the tears that wet her face, Natasha watched them from behind Bucky’s arms, the anger, frustration, and bitter confusion twisting her face. She was so clearly in distress, but beyond identifying it and waiting for her to calm down. there was nothing any of them knew to do. 

The minutes dragged by excruciatingly slowly. Watching the pitiful scene before him, Clint felt everything go a little numb. He felt like his limbs were made of lead, weighing him to the spot where he stood. It felt like an eternity before Steve and Sam arrived, Jarvis having alerted them of the unfolding situation. They entered the kitchen space cautiously and stopped beside Tony and Bruce.

“What happened?” Sam whispered as they stood there in hollow silence. 

The only sound that emanated through the space was the quiet, exhausted sobbing and keening that came from the tiny child shaking in Bucky’s arms and his hushed murmuring of comfort as he rocked her almost unnoticeably.

“I have no idea what set her off this time…” Tony said, shaking his head sadly. They looked to Clint, but he didn’t notice. He stared blankly at the two on them on the floor, Bucky almost bent double over her in his lap. He couldn’t help but feel the wash of guilt that swept through him.

“Buck,” Steve called gently, “is she calming down?”

A silent moment passed. “Yeah,” Bucky answered, still turned away from them, voice low and rough. He took a deep breath, exhaling shakily, though either no one noticed or they pretended they didn’t.

“Okay… what do you think we should do?” he asked after a moment, tone still cautious.

Bucky took a measured breath, exhaling slowly and evenly. He began to straighten up, leaning back. “Okay,” he breathed out, thinking. “ _ Natalia, _ ” he said delicately. She snuffled quietly, face buried against his chest and arms wrapped around his torso as far as she could reach. But she had finally relented. “ _ I’m going to take you back to your room, okay? Is that okay? _ ”

Seconds ticked by. Finally, barely, a tiny nod. 

Bucky stood up slowly, cradling her carefully against him. For the first time he glanced up at the others. His eyes landed on Clint, and suddenly it was as if he went a little pale, his jaw slack and eyes going wide in surprise.

“Steve get a hand on him,” Bucky ordered quickly, making a half step forward but stopping, aware of the bundle of shaking child in his arms.

Clint looked to his left at Steve who was standing beside him, confusion written all over his face. “What? I’m fine-”

“Oh hell,” dropped from Steve’s mouth, and suddenly he had a firm grip on Clint’s shoulders and was directing him toward the nearest chair. 

Clint lurched along with him, dropping in the chair heavier than intended. He was still confused. She he was a little lightheaded and the scrapes and gouges on his arms and neck and where Natasha had bit him hurt like a bitch, but he wasn’t about to fall down or anything…

That was, of course, when he looked down at himself and registered the blood. There was… a bit of it. From his wrist. Where she bit him. It was torn up pretty bad…

The sticky red liquid ran down his wrist, coating his hand and dripping from his fingers. It had soaked into the bottom of his shirt and a good bit of it has run down the leg of his sweatpants. There was a little pool gathering from where it dripped to the floor. It wasn’t letting up either.

“Aww, no,” Clint sighed disappointedly at the mess. 

He looked back up at Bucky, who was standing awkwardly, frozen in mid step, and already staring at Clint.. He had a pained, conflicted expression on his face, the muscles in his jaw twitching. He looked back down at Natasha in his arms, and back at Clint. “I’ll be right back,” he said, and Clint wasn’t sure who he was talking to until Clint realized he was the only one listening. Steve and the others had snapped out of it and had begun fussing all about as if they’d never seen a bit of blood before. Then Bucky had turned sharply on his heel, headed as quickly as he could for the elevator without jostling Natasha too much.

Sam tossed Steve a clean hand towel from the sink, and Steve immediately applied pressure to the jagged tear in his wrist. Clint flinched violently at the unexpected bolt of pain up his arm. 

“Ow, ow, ow,” he repeated quietly, trying to relax the muscles in his forearm and hand but finding that difficult.

“Jesus, what did she do? Open his radial artery?” Tony asked, equal parts amazed and horrified.

“Doubtful, but…” Bruce’s response dropped off.

“Not very reassuring,” Clint grumbled under his breath. His head hurt. Deciding there were altogether too many people swarming him, he elected to ignore them. Instead, his arm still outstretched across the edge of the counter in Steve’s firm grip, Clint rested his forehead on the cool countertop, closing his eyes and focusing on his breathing. That only worked so well to tune out the annoying, concerned conversation happening over him.

“This is going to need stitches,” Steve said, squeezing his wrist harder, which made Clint wince.

Ha. If he had a dollar for every time somebody said that to him. 

“Think we can do it? Or should we call in a SHIELD medic?” Sam asked. Given the frequency with which any of them found themselves in need of a first aid kit, stitching up the odd gash or gaping hole was something they could usually handle on their own. Still, there were exceptions, particularly when airing on the side of caution.

“Uh, the wrist is tricky,” Bruce began.  “Too many veins, arteries, tendons-” He tapped at Steve’s hand, getting him to peel back the bloody hand towel. He got a quick peek at the wound, inhaling sharply as he did so. “Oh yeah, Jarvis,” he said louder for the AI, “get whatever poor SHIELD medic that’s on call in here.”

Clint groaned in annoyance. “Can’t you just fix me up, Doc?”

Bruce shook his head. “For the last time, I’m not the kind of doctor.”

Clint fell silent for a while after that.

Steve grabbed the fresh towel from Tony’s hands and replaced the pressure on it. “Clint, you alright?” he asked, nudging his shoulder with his free hand.

“Hmm, yep,” Clint said, shifting slightly to press his face to a new cool spot on the marble countertop. “M’fine.”

Clint lost track of time. No, he wasn’t in danger of bleeding out. It wasn’t even that bad. With a little bit of pressure they got the bleeding under control in no time. But his whole wrist and hand started throbbing with his pulse, aching painfully, a dull sort of misery. And the myriad of bright red scratches and scrapes across his arms, his neck and collar, and even to one side of his jaw only added to it.

The only reliable way by which Clint measured the passing time was by the intervals that Steve kept nudging him, making sure he was still with it, prodding him until he responded. Clint was however aware enough to notice that, when it all calmed down as they waited on the SHIELD doctor to arrive, the small crowd that had slowly been making him feel more and more claustrophobic had dwindled in size. The others peeled off. To check on Bucky and Natasha, to clean up, to continue their non-stop research and problem solving surrounding this entire de-aging debacle, or to resume whatever it was they’d been up to before their morning began its unfortunate downward spiral.

A while after that fourth check-in though, Clint realized that even Steve- a solid, stoic, and sizable presence beside him that whole while- slid away. The firm pressure that had been biting into his wrist that whole while eased off, only to be replaced with something just  _ that  _ much softer.

Clint rolled his head to look over at the seat beside him, finding Bucky there, his metal hand replacing Steve’s grip on the towel wrapped around Clint’s wrist, and everyone else gone. It wasn’t a crushing weight. It was actually incredibly gentle compared to what Clint knew that arm was capable of. Clint grinned lazily at him.

Bucky huffed out a quiet laugh, shaking his head at him. “The hell is wrong with you,Barton… “ he said gently, a fond- if sad- smile touching the corners of his mouth. “Can’t you keep out of trouble on your own for one minute?”

“Um, this is  _ hardly _ my fault,” Clint insisted, letting his eyes fall closed again. “Not Tasha’s fault either,” he was quick to add.

He heard Bucky sigh. “No,” he agreed. His right hand rested lightly on the inside of Clint’s outstretched forearm, well away from the injury, the pad of his thumb stroking softly over his skin.

“She okay?” he asked, humming contentedly as Bucky’s hand hovered up and down his arm, fingers sketching faint, swooping circles over his skin almost mindlessly.

“Yeah,” he said. “Asleep. I sent Steve to stick around close by though. Just in case.”

“Huh,” Clint huffed, nodding his head against the marble slightly. “I’d be too. Lil’ devil fought me squirmin’ round like a rattlesnake on PCP.”

Bucky laughed louder and unexpectedly at that. However the joke passed after a moment, and did nothing to ease the bitter sadness of what they just saw, and of what had happened to their friend.

Clint bit his lip, sitting up slightly though still leaning heavily over the edge of the counter. “Damn it,” he swore under his breath, shaking his head. “Screw the fuckin’ Red Room.”

“Mhhmm,” Bucky hummed in agreement, nodding mutely.

“When we get this whole thing sorted out,” Clint said, motioning between the two of them with his uninjured hand, “I swear to god, I’m gonna make those bastards regret they ever-” Clint bit off the end of his sentence, jaw clenched tight. That they ever messed around with whatever heaping load of alien magic bullshit did this, he wanted to say. But also, that they ever hurt her. Natasha. That they ever did whatever they did to her, when they had her, to leave her like that. 

“Yeah,” Bucky said softly. Clint felt Bucky’s free hand migrate to his shoulder, squeezing once reassuringly. He understood exactly what he meant. “We will.”

A long silence passed between them, Bucky sitting beside him keeping a steady pressure on his wrist, Clint resting against the counter. Not an awkward or uncomfortable silence. Just… Clint didn’t know. It was good though. They were good.

Eventually, Bucky broke that silence. Again, not awkwardly or jarringly, but easily, like every tiny interaction between them came oh so naturally to him. Clint didn’t know how that was possible when it felt like he couldn’t walk a straight line in front of Bucky without tripping over his own two feet.

“Damn, she got you good,” he said not unsympathetically. Clint’s eyes fluttered open to watch him as he felt Bucky’s flesh hand softly, delicately trace over the angry red scratches down his forearm. 

“Well,” Clint said, shrugging, “not the worst she’s ever done to me. And the worst was intentional, too.”

Bucky didn’t respond. His fingers continued ghosting over the stinging marks up his bicep, over his shoulder gently as Clint shifted to sit more upright, over the gauges at his collar, exploring the side of his neck, just barely gliding over the the pulse that fluttered away with Clint’s quickening heartbeat. All the while, Bucky’s eyes flickered between Clint’s own and the faint trail he made up Clint’s body, a small hint of smile on his lips. Finally, Bucky’s hand came to rest more solidly against Clint’s jaw after tracing down the faintest of red scratches there. 

Clint shifted in his seat just barely, opening up toward Bucky. He couldn’t help but turning his head to face him. Bucky’s eyes were dark, hooded, just barely touched by a faint grin. Clint felt himself leaning in to some imperceivable degree. 

Like gravity had shifted and the center of it was Bucky Barnes and damn it he was falling. 

But then Jarvis was alerting them over the Tower’s sound system that the SHIELD medic had arrived, that Tony and the doc were on their way up the elevator, and whatever that moment was, it faded away. 

Bucky drew back his hand, sitting back in his chair. But he never looked away, never tried to cover the gesture up with something it wasn’t. Even when Jarvis announced the elevator’s arrival, even when they stepped out and made their way over to them, Bucky maintained that easy contact, offering a soft smile and reassuring touch to his elbow. 

Finally, Clint glanced away, barely even listening when the SHIELD agent made her introduction. 

This… this was a first for him. It was also the first time that he allowed himself even the faintest bit of leeway to consider exactly what he was feeling, and that it might- and that it might not be the fantasy that he’d told himself it was. 

He looked back at Bucky, butterflies taking over his stomach and head reeling from something other than the blood loss. He knew that when it came to reading situations like this, he was the actual, absolute worst.

But… he didn’t know what else it could be.


	5. Chapter 5

“Uuuugggghh…” Clint heaved the pained, bone-weary, aggravated sound out of his lungs as he sank into the couch in his floor’s living room, face first, wishing at least a little bit that it would swallow him up completely. 

“Ya alright?” Bucky asked, not bothering to look over at the melodramatic display unfolding beside him. Instead, he tossed back another handful of popcorn, propped a foot up on the coffee table, and continued watching the pathetic excuse for an accurate representation of espionage and hand-to-hand combat play out on the TV screen in front of him. What could he say… the acting was better.

Clint sucked in another deep breath and repeated the beached whale sound. 

“Hmm,” Bucky hummed thoughtfully, nodding. “Really? You don’t say…”

Clint flapped an arm up in a half-hearted gesture as he tried said something else, the words completely muffled in the cushions of the couch. 

“Uh-huh, uh-huh,” Bucky nodded along. “Do go on…”

Finally, Clint lifted his head, glaring at Bucky. “Fuck you,” he groaned, letting his head fall back down against the couch, though this time he at least laid sidewise so he could talk.

“Um, ‘scuse me? Rude.” Buck was only half paying attention to Clint’s drama though, much preferring to watch the  _ Casino Royale _ movie. 

Clint ignored him. “Ugh, James Bond again? Garbage.”

“Yes, Bond again. And yes, garbage. Not at all accurate. A disgrace to the profession. Plus, I’m not too cool with making movies out of this shit and convincing young kids that espionage and assassination is fun. But, that being said, it is rather entertaining,” Bucky explained, offering Clint the popcorn bowl.

Clint reached for it blindly, grabbing a handful and making a mess in the process. Bucky absently dusted the fallen popcorn kernels off his lap. Clint fell silent, watching for a minute. “He just made a big fiery explosion by shooting a compressed gas tank. With what looks like a nine millimeter handgun,” Clint deadpanned, not at all impressed.

“Yep,” Bucky agreed cheerfully. 

“He would need an incendiary round at least.”

“Yep. Like I said, inaccurate,” Bucky repeated, still refusing to let Clint put off his good mood.

They watched for a couple more minutes, Clint constantly fidgeting, flopping over on the couch, sighing heavily, and occasionally making a disgruntled sound when something that truly violated the laws of realistic intelligence gathering or even of gravity happened.

Finally, Bucky picked up the remote and hit the pause button. “Something you wanna say besides complaints about the movie?”

Clint thought about it for a moment. Sighing rather defeatedly, he sagged deeper into the cushion. “No,” he mumbled.

Bucky rotated in his seat, pulling his feet up to sit cross legged and to face Clint, who was now lying on his back, staring aimlessly up at the ceiling. “Did you get Natasha to bed?”

“Yeah.”

“She go easily this time?”

“No.”

“Put up a fight?”

“No.”

“Clint, quit scratching at that. It’s never gonna heal,” Bucky chided.

Clint rolled his eyes, but stopped itching at his bandaged wrist regardless.

“She just couldn’t sleep?”

“Nope, couldn’t.”

“And didn’t let you leave?”

“Yeah.”

Bucky nodded. Over the course of almost the past two weeks (during which hope of figuring this  _ problem _ out and returning to their more correctly aged bodies was fading), Clint and Bucky had been alternating who would be responsible for getting Natasha to go to bed. It typically involved the arduous process of getting her to take a goddamn bath, to change into her growing collection of various Avenger themed pajamas, convincing her to actually get into and stay in her bed, and then staying with her until she was actually asleep. 

She would fuss something awful and sometimes physically cling to them if they tried to slip out before then. And then it was the matter of untangling themselves from her clinging limbs after she was asleep without waking her. Usually, they could get her down by 9:30 or 10:00 at night. 

It was currently going on 11:00.

“She’s afraid of the nightmares,” Clint blurted out.

A silent moment passed, the bright glare of the frozen screen casting colorful light across the darkened room. Bucky watched Clint, faint red light playing across his face as he stared up at the ceiling, expression neutral. The nightmares were something they all understood. They had no idea what figures and memories came to life in seven or eight year old Natasha’s nightmares though. It made Bucky a little sick.

Throughout nearly the past two weeks, Clint and/or Bucky had been jolted awake by Jarvis to alert them that their charge had woken up in distress at least five times. They got to bed late, woke up whenever she woke up in the morning (meaning too early), and they were woken up at any point in the middle of the night for an hour or two at least whenever she did. That, and Natasha had three more episodes since the one where she almost shredded Clint’s wrist. Only one of them had been violent, in which Bucky had taken the brute of the flailing assault that consisted mostly of pinning her down so she couldn’t hurt herself or others until she had worn herself out. In the other two, the most minute things seemed to set her off, and there was just a meltdown. 

Needless to say, 24/7 babysitting duty was exhausting. 

It made Bucky a little bit glad that he and Clint were forbidden from any and all Avengers business. Though the fact that they were forbidden from even leaving the Tower while this Red Room, weird alien magic science stuff did its thing and Tony, Bruce, and SHIELD tried to fix it seemed a little extreme. They were going a little stir crazy.

“Did she say anything?” Bucky asked. They were still having trouble getting her to speak. She clearly only knew Russian, and was fairly literate in it as well, but most of their communication entailed them speaking and nodding or frowning mutely. 

“Not really. I talked. She listened. Mostly just going on how she reacted.”

Bucky hummed in agreement. It made sense. A few minutes of not quite comfortable silence ticked by. It was a difficult topic to talk about. Bucky scooted a little closer to Clint, reaching for his hand and intertwining his flesh and blood fingers with Clint’s. He squeezed lightly once, reassuringly.

Clint bit his lower lip. That had been happening recently also. The fleeting contact, the quick comforting touches, the just barely brushing past each other when there was plenty of room to give each other a comfortable berth, the hand carding through Clint’s hair when he sat on the floor in front of Bucky at the couch the night before, Bucky’s lingering hand on his lower back when they walking down a flight of stairs the day before that… The list went on. 

Bucky had initiated all of it. Clint was still too terrified to consider what any of it meant.

Clint didn’t pull his hand away though. He never pulled away.

“It makes sense,” Bucky murmured, thumb idly stroking the back of Clint’s hand. 

Clint hummed in agreement. “I told her that if you sleep on your stomach, then you can’t have nightmares.”

Bucky looked down at Clint, confused, though Clint’s expression remained blank, fixed on some distant dark spot on the ceiling. “Why did you do that?”

“Worked for me when I was a kid.”

Bucky considered that for a moment. It was rare that Clint broach any topic even within the same vein as his childhood. Bucky knew very little about it. A basic summary, maybe. Not the details. Not little things like that.

“How’s that?” Bucky asked, tone carefully neutral and appropriately curious. It wasn’t the time to go probing for details. Clint would probably just shut down if he did.

“I was probably six or seven. I dunno. Had ‘em a lot. My brother told me that you couldn’t have ‘em if you slept on your stomach though. And it worked. For as long as I believed it worked I guess. Like, it’s all in your head, right?” Clint shrugged awkwardly where he lay, glancing away.

A little knot of something- anger, maybe, hot and tight and protective- coiled in the pit of Bucky’s stomach. He didn’t like the thought of six or seven year old Clint being in that position, though he knew enough to know why he was. Bucky had a hard time imaging the entirely foreign type of shitty parents that Clint had. He didn’t like to think about it too much.

“Yeah,” Bucky agreed. “Makes sense.” Clint might have been blushing faintly. Or it might’ve been the soft red light. Bucky wasn’t sure. He leaned over Clint slightly, smiling softly as he met his gaze. “ ‘M glad it worked for you,” he said, squeezing his hand again lightly, a little longer this time. 

As much as he thought he could get away with.

“Hey,” Bucky said after a moment, not quite pleased with how down an’ out Clint was acting of late. “Get up. Come on.” Bucky hopped up to his feet, tugging Clint’s hand to urge him to his feet as well, but he didn’t budge. 

“Ugh,” he groaned, stretching out on the couch. “Why?”

“Because I’m askin’ real nice, that’s why.” Bucky tugged his hand again, but Clint refused.

“If this is you ‘askin’ real nice’, I’m afraid of what you bein’ a jerk about it is like.”

Bucky waited about few seconds for Clint to change his mind. “Well, looks somethin’ like this.” Bucky grabbed his good arm and got a grip under his other arm and hauled him off the couch and to his feet in one foul swoop. Clint yelped in surprise, frowning moodily at him. “Now come on before I decide I gotta carry you.”

“Fine,” Clint grumped, shoulders thoroughly slouched and frown in place to make sure Bucky knew he was not pleased.

He followed him as far as the kitchen, where both of them were a little surprised to find Steve and Sam still up.

“Fellas,” Bucky greeted them on his way to the refrigerator. Clint checked his hip against the countertop, arms crossed. The two other men nodded at them, perfectly pleased the mind their own business, at least until Steve saw what Bucky was up to.

“Oh no, I don’t think so,” Steve said, leaving no room for argument when he saw Bucky looting the fridge of a six pack of beer. Bucky tucked it under his arm protectively, planting himself firmly and giving Steve a  _ look  _ that screamed how much he begged to differ.

“Uh, excuse the fuck outta you, Steven?” he said sarcastically, tone as polite as could be. “Why would that be?”

“There’s this thing called a drinking age, Buck. Maybe you’ve heard of it.”

Clint sank slowly into a seat, trying to suppress a faint smile that was spreading over his face. This was far more entertaining that shitty wannabe spy movies.

“Hey, I’m older than  _ you _ kiddo. Don’t you dare lecture me-”

“It’s not about how  _ technically  _ old you are, Bucky-”

Bucky rolled his eyes. Hard. In the truly perfect way that only a petulant teenager could master. “Oh, right, now Captain ‘let me try ‘an enlist a hundred different illegal ways’ America is gonna lecture me on the spirit of the laws-’

Steve didn’t rise to the bait. “Physically you’re like nineteen, Buck. There’s a reason kids aren’t supposed to drink alcohol-”

“Oh don’t you dare pretend like you’re the responsible one. And you know damn well I and everybody else and their grandmothers were drinking it well before they were twenty-one.”

“Well, I dunno what to say Buck,” Steve said, getting frustrated. “Times have changed.”

“Oh sure, when it suits you. In the ‘20s, you know as well as I that the drinking age was whenever you were tall enough to see over the bar. Not that  _ you  _ let that stop you. Don’t see what’s wrong with that-”

Clint exchanged a look with Sam. The both of them were having a difficult time keeping a disinterested facade up like they weren’t dying of laughter on the inside.

“And we know things now that we didn’t know  _ know  _ back then,” Steve raised his voice, shaking his head like thei was obvious and could not believe it was up for debate.

“You obtuse-”

“Now we’re devolving into name calling?”

“-hypocritical-”

“Buck, come on.” Steve stepped toward, hand outstretched to take the drinks but Bucky danced backward out of reach.

“-two faced-”

“Bucky, please,” Steve groaned, hands on hips. Bucky kept backing away. Moving away from the refrigerator and toward the elevator. 

“-back stabbing-”

“James,” Steve snapped, making Bucky pause and raise an eyebrow at him.

“-self righteous-”

Steve marched forward, following him out into the common space.“James Buchanan Barnes, that’s enough.”

“Is your head so firmly stuck up your ass that you can’t see we’re fucking dyin’ here Stevie?” Bucky finally yelled, causing Steve to falter for a second. “Gimme a break,” he pleaded, shoulders sagging dramatically. 

Clint recognized someone playing an angle like that when he saw it. He exchanged another look with Sam, who, shoulders shaking with silent laughter, gave him a little nod of approval. Clint silently slid out of his chair, behind Steve’s back now. 

“Bucky,” Steve said, quietly now. “We know hardly anything about how this,  _ thing _ that the Red Room did, works. Please, just give it here. I’m not taking any risks with you.”

There was a long pause, then Bucky sighed dramatically. “Fine. Take it, you useless puppy dog.” Bucky shoved the six pack at him, walking past him as he did. Clint was waiting, leaning against the cabinet with a bored expression on his face. “C’mon Clint, let’s go find age appropriate ways of drownin’ in our sorrows.” He threw an arm over his shoulder, hauling him along in the opposite direction of the elevator, toward the stairs that were around the corner from the kitchen.

“Three cheers for healthy coping mechanisms,” Clint said loudly for the other two to hear as they rounded the corner, echoing Bucky’s devil-may-care tone.

When they were safely out of sight and hearing range, Bucky, his arm still around Clint’s shoulder, leaned in closer to CLint and muttered lowly, “So you grabbed another one from the fridge, right?”

“Yep,” Clint affirmed, smirking with satisfaction that he had picked up on the game without needing to be filled in on the plan. “Left it on the stairs.”

“Good thinkin’ doll,” Bucky all but crooned proudly, nothing able to subdue the little bounce in his step.

Clint blushed furiously at that, shoving his hands in his pockets and quickly dropping his head and glancing away to try and prevent Bucky from seeing, and wow talk about butterflies in his stomach. 

But it was too late for that. Bucky did see it. And it was fuckin’ adorable. 

He was determined to see it again.

 

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

 

Bucky wasn’t through with whatever his plan was quite yet. Clint let him guide him up the stairs to the next level, where he then led them out of the stairwell- and now that Steve was no longer blocking the way- toward the elevator. Bucky herded him into the elevator car, their pilfered booze tucked securely under the arm.

“Jarvis, roof please,” Bucky requested, letting his head thump gently against the wall. He glanced over at Clint with an easy grin. One he couldn’t help but return.

“I’m afraid your and Agent Barton’s access has been restricted,” the AI explained, and even managed to sound apologetic about it.

“Uh, by whom?” He asked, mouth twisting in displeasure.

“I believe the decision was made by Captain Rogers.”

“Steve just can’t help bein’ a cockblock apparently,” Bucky muttered, frustrated and bored with it by now. Clint laughed once, dropping his head again. Bucky’s arm was still over his shoulder, pulling him flush against his side as they leaned against the elevator wall, so he couldn’t go far to conceal the pink blooming across his face though. “Jarvis, was this the same brilliant decision that doesn’t let you let us leave the Tower?” 

“The same.”

“Uh-huh,” Bucky nodded, rolling his eyes at the ceiling. Though whether it was intended for Jarvis or for Steve, Clint didn’t know. “Jarvis, can’t you do us this one solid? I mean, fine, we can’t run around New York, but what trouble are we gonna cause on the roof?”

“Unfortunately, as safety concerns were cited as the primary determining factor of this directive, I cannot allow an override.”

Clint let his eyes fall closed, breathing out slowly. “Jarvis, if I have to pry the damn panel off this control box and re-wire shit to take us to the roof myself, I’m gonna be pissed. Also, if I don’t do it right, we might plummet to our unfortunate deaths. But if that doesn’t happen, Tony will get pissed too when he’s gotta fix it and replace the panel. And then Steve’ll get pissed and yell at me about ‘destruction of property’ and ‘reckless endangerment’. An’ then Bucky will get pissed at Steve again. And I can’t promise that nobody’ll threaten bodily harm in all of that. And my point is,  _ all  _ of it could be avoided if you just take take us to the roof and don’t be a snitch about it.” 

Bucky was grinning again. “How’s that for ‘safety concerns’?” Bucky asked.

A few seconds of silence passed. Finally, the doors closed and the floor numbers lit up above the door. “Very well,” the AI conceded. 

It took only a few moments for the elevator to reach the hangar. The doors opened into the cavernous room, heavy plate metal and concrete walls and overhanging ceiling opening up on the far side where the landing pad dropped away, revealing a frankly jaw-dropping view of the city at night. They walked around the Quinjet parked in the middle of the room, ducking under the tip of the wing as Bucky led them to the edge of the landing pad that extended away from the Tower and the mouth of the hangar. 

They stopped there for a moment, standing silently as the early autumn breeze whistled past. The city was moving, vibrant lights of traffic streaking through the grid of streets stretching on and on below, buildings glowing, yet as the noise filtered through the air it didn’t quite reach them so high above it all.

“I don’t care how long I live- I’ll never get used to this,” Bucky said, shaking his head slightly in awe of New York City at night. 

“Well, we’re only getting younger, it seems,” Clint said, a faint smile playing across is lips. “Might just get used to it yet.”

Bucky smiled at that, though it was touched with sadness. Barely there, but there nonetheless. A moment later though and Bucky brushed it off, breezing deeply in the cool fresh air and dropping down to sit cross legged on the concrete. He tugged on Clint’s non-bandaged wrist to join him.

He handed a bottle to Clint, who hesitated, shoulders slumping. “Aw, damnit. Forgot to snag a bottle opener.”

Bucky reached across him, the faint light gleaming off the metal as he grabbed the neck of Clint’s bottle and flicked the cap off with his thumb. Clint stared for a second in stunned silence before he broke down laughing, setting the beer on the ground beside him and dropping his head into his hands, his shoulders shaking with laughter.

Bucky looked at him like he’d grown a second head, but little more fondly. “What?” he asked, confused.

“Nothin’,” Clint said, calming himself down. “I just-” He shook his head, breaking out into a wide grin. “I never thought about using it like that. Your arm. It’s-” he shrugged. “It’s stupid, I know.”

Bucky huffed, amused. “You’re kinda weird, Barton.”

“Aren’t we all?”

“Touché.”

They fell back into a comfortable silence, working through the six pack between them. Eventually though, Bucky got to talking. 

It wasn’t much of a conversation. Bucky spoke, Clint listened. He talked about the city, how he wouldn’t even recognize it now with how things have changed. He talked about growing up and watching the Empire State Building’s construction in the ‘30s, how it was all anyone talked about for the longest time, how surely, they all thought, that was the future right there. And now it was just one outdated silhouette in the skyline. Bucky started to talk about how Steve had set about sketching it one day, coming back to the same spot every month for almost a year to draw how the building and scaffolds seemed to rise out of the ground. 

Now, it was still there, which should have been comforting, he explained. Instead it was just sad.

Bucky started talking about the other things that had changed. The little things about Brooklyn, far smaller and seeming insignificant compared to the massive skyscrapers that had come and gone and changed the skyline he knew, but that were the most important. 

There was the tiny corner store where he bought the newspaper for a couple cents from Mr. Jeffries each morning. There was a diner down the street from it where he’d fallen head over heels for the much older, much out of his league waitress Dorothy Davis when he was hardly older than Natasha was now. Across the block from that was the bar where he’d gotten the shit truly beat out of him for the first time in his life by four guys that Steve had picked a fight with because they were messing with some poor girl. Steve had felt real bad about that. It was typical though, and it wasn’t like Bucky  _ wouldn’t _ have intervened if Steve weren’t there. He would’ve been more tactful about it though. So he probably wouldn’t have come away from it thoroughly bloodied and bruised.

That brought him to his sister, Rebecca. How she had fussed up a storm over him and Steve when they came back after that, but how she had ultimately been the one that kept his Ma from losing it completely. She lived a long life, Bucky found out. And a happy one, it sounded like. Got married to a guy who treated her right, had some kids, and lived comfortably enough so her kids never  knew what it was like to crawl around the apartment on their hands and knees, scraping together loose coins and pocket change from under the couch. 

And apparently, he had some distant relatives- grand nieces and nephews- running around out there somewhere. Maybe some day he would work up the courage to find ‘em. But certainly not now, with everything that’d happened.

But it wasn’t all depressing. 

It hadn’t been Bucky’s intention to drag Clint up there and drown him in more sorrows. Plenty of the anecdotes he weaved through his narrative were amusing, and downright funny. Bucky’s storytelling skills were perfected through never ending hours crouched in a foxhole or in a sniper’s perched, spent waiting and waiting just to do more waiting, with nothing to do  _ but  _ talk to the guys in the mud beside him. Plenty of his stories had them both laughing so hard they were gasping for breath, or in Clint’s case, flopping back on the concrete and struggling to get any air in his lungs at all.

The beer was gone. Bucky couldn’t feel the difference, the knock-off super soldier serum having been unaffected by whatever the Red Room had done to them. Clint however was feeling the affects. That much was obvious. Not drunk, but not sober either.

“Wait wait wait,” he said, lying on the landing pad and staring up at the dark sky, his chest and shoulders shaking still from suppressed laughter as he tried to reel himself in. “You ‘spec me to believe, that Steve-” He shook his head, clamping his hands over his mouth as he broke down in an uncontrollable fit of silent laughter.

“Yeah, Steve had no idea, poor guy,” Bucky repeated, shaking his head at Clint, grinning widely.

“‘An he just, asked what it meant? Right there?” Clint asked disbelievingly, making increasingly uncoordinated hand gestures as he spoke. “At the dinner table?” 

“Yep,” Bucky said, popping the ‘p’. He knocked back the last dreg of the basically empty bottle he’d been fidgeting with. “It wasn’t like I could just yell at him to go look it up, either. The internet is incredibly helpful, by the way.”

“Well, what happened?” Clint asked, propping himself up on his elbows and looking back to Bucky, who twisted halfway around to meet his gaze. In the low glow of the hangar’s running lights, Clint looked pleasantly tipsy. A warm flush spread across his cheekbones, blonde hair disheveled even more so than usual, and his eyes were bright and touched by his lopsided, easy grin.

“Imagine the most awkward silence you’ve ever experienced, and multiply it by twenty. Becca almost keeled over and died right there. But the  _ worst  _ part was that my Ma had no idea what it was either. So she looked at me and expected an answer. And-”

“And nobody said no to your mom,” Clint parroted back knowingly what Bucky had already made clear, nodding. “Well, that’s…” Clint inclined his head in agreement. “Yeah, that’s rough buddy,” he acknowledged with a grin. He sounded far more amused by Bucky’s misfortune than sympathetic.

“Oh yeah, Stevie owed me big time for that. I made sure he didn’t forget it.”

“But what did you do?” Clint asked, lurching forward to sit upright. It probably wasn’t necessary- he wasn’t in any danger of falling over seeing as he was already on the ground, and his balance wasn’t completely shot- but Bucky reached out to grab his shoulder, pulling him upright and steadying him.

“I floundered like a fish outta water for a hot second and then I told the truth- that I wasn’t comfortable explaining it and much prefered that we kindly change the subject.” 

Clint hummed in approval, closing his eyes as he leaned back on his hands, his head falling back and face bathed in the yellow light. Bucky let the silence settle comfortably, watching Clint intently. When the wind suddenly picked up, the chill biting deeper, a faint shiver ran down his body, his brow creasing slightly. 

Frowning in displeasure, Bucky shuffled closer until they were side by side, and with a mental ‘fuck it’, he slipped his right arm around Clint’s waist, pulling him flush against him. Clint didn’t complain. If anything, he leaned closer into the warmth that radiated off of Bucky’s body- just another perk of being a super soldier with a truly ridiculous metabolism. 

Clint hummed agreeably, his head rolling onto Bucky’s shoulder. He was tired and he was tipsy and it  _ was  _ cold and he was going to blame it on all of those things if it came to that. But he was pretty sure that it wouldn’t. He was pretty sure that Bucky would go on pretending like that was a totally, casually, platonically bro thing to do. 

Clint was alright with that approach. Pretending like difficult things didn’t exist was always his go-to method of dealing with them.

Neither of them moved or broke the silence that had settled over them like a thick blanket. There was a thing- whatever it was- almost like tension, so heavy and palpable between them that he could almost touch it, even if it was invisible and unspoken. It wasn’t necessarily  _ bad _ , but it was an elephant in the room. And elephant only  _ left _ the room in one of two ways.

After a long while it was Bucky who spoke, his voice low and heavy in his ear. “If you’re cold we can go inside.”

“Hm, ‘m good,” Clint muttered. His heart rate picked up the pace, a nervous energy skittering through him. 

Bucky probably wanted him to get off of him, a self conscious voice whispered in the back of his head. Bucky was probably going to get up and make him get off him and go inside and leave him there, that voice said again. Clint probably fucked up this time, it said again. Clint made the executive decision to squash that voice with extreme prejudice. He had an out, he had excuses, he was going to wait and see.

Bucky did move, barely, but it wasn’t to leave him out in the cold. The flesh arm that was still wrapped around his waist pulled him in just that much tighter, his hand finding Clint’s own and lacing their fingers together. Clint found himself turned further into Bucky, his head resting against his collar, his knees that had been pulled up to Clint’s chest basically falling into his lap. 

And his mouth was right there, their faces mere inches apart. Clint looked through his eyelashes, unwilling to pretend he was anything other than half asleep and not at all aware of every minute detail, of every square inch of Bucky that was pressed against him, of ever tiny rise and fall as he breathed. Oh fuck. He was fucked. He was fucking hopeless.

“Clint,” Bucky said quietly again, but this time it was different. A little hesitant. “Are you still freaking out?”

It seemed an innocuous question, but Clint felt like it was asking a lot more than just how he was still feeling about the whole de-aging thing. “Mm, generally no…” He took a shallow breath. “But, I mean, I think I’ve got whiplash from being bitch slapped  _ so hard _ , I went and astral projected right out of my body and like fifteen years into the past, and everything with Natasha is fucked up, and I’m really worried about her, and obviously I’m hoping we can fix this and I’ve actually got this really not great feeling that whatever the Red Room was up to, they aren’t done yet, and I also get that none of that probably answers what you’re actually asking but I can’t answer that Bucky so I’m gonna go ahead and stop talking now… but, generally no.”

Bucky took a deep breath. “Well, uh- I get what you mean,” he started, shifting uncomfortably a tiny bit. “Just, well fuck. Those Red Room guys really had some shitty timing, ya know?”

“Why da’ya say that?”

“‘Cause I just thought, you and me- we were gettin’ somewhere, maybe.” He sounded resoundingly close to something like embarrassed, but that didn’t make sense to Clint because Bucky Barnes was a suave bastard with a killer smile and charm up to there. 

Clint straightened up, lifting his head off Bucky’s shoulder to look at him proper.  But Bucky didn’t return the look. He just kept staring off at the city below them. “Yeah?” 

“Mm-hmm,” Bucky agreed, eyes still locked on the distance. “I was puttin’ in real effort, too.”

“Effort… huh.” Clint said like that was interesting, raising an eyebrow at him, a sly smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. 

This time Bucky turned his head to give him a reproachful look. “Hey, not my fault you’re blind as a bat when it comes to thing you can’t shoot an arrow at.”

“Excuse the fuck outta you? Well gosh Barnes, I’m just sayin’ I’d hate to see what you not tryin’ looks like then,” Clint quipped back. It came so much easier when he didn’t think about it too much, when it was wrapped up in their usual banter. It was… familiar. Natural. And they both sort of quietly acknowledged it so neither of them had to feel uncomfortable.

Bucky looked downright indignant. “Hey, I gave you my dibs on the pizza-”

“And you were  _ super _ passive aggressive about it-”

“I saved your sorry ass in that pit in Boston-”

“A totally bro thing to do, thanks-”

“When we slept on the floor in Nat’s room?”

“Ugh, don’t even-”

“What about after Nat almost bit your hand off? What about that, huh?”

“Well, I was gettin’ mixed messages-”

“Bull.  _ Shit. _ I just called you fuckin’ ‘ _ doll _ ’,” Bucky said like he couldn’t believe himself, dragging out the syllable and staring at Clint like he was fucking crazy.

Clint considered that one, faint warmth returning to his face at the very recent memory. He could blame that on the cold though. “Um, was that intentional?” Clint asked, genuinely curious.

“Well, it kinda slipped out, to be honest,” Bucky said, shoulders slumping a tiny bit in defeat. Clint shivered again at the strengthening breeze, and Bucky immediately tugged him against him again. “But all I’m sayin’ is, I got your attention, didn’t I? And that’s quite the feat, you dumbass.”

“Wow, because insulting me is gonna work…” Clint grumbled. He ducked his head against the wind though, pressing the side of his face against Bucky’s chest, eyes closed tight.

“We should really goo inside,” Bucky murmured, wrapping both arms around Clint now, fingers carding through his hair softly.

“No, I’m good,” Clint insisted. He took a stabilizing breath. His head was reeling a little bit. He was only half convinced that he wasn’t dreaming, or maybe he was in a coma or doped up on painkillers and unconscious and none of the past weeks had actually happened. He could believe that. It honestly seemed more plausible. 

“Look,” Bucky said softly. “I know it’s all a little-” He stopped himself, and Clint could almost hear him roll his eyes. “A lot, awkward right now. And, everything’s all manners of fucked up, but… when all of it gets sorted out… we’re gonna figure this out right, okay?”

Shivering again, but not because of the cold this time, Clint nodded slowly against him. “Yeah,” he agreed quietly. “Okay.”

Bucky’s arms tightened fractionally around him. “Okay,” he nodded. “Okay.” Another silent minute passed, but then a particularly strong gust of wind cutting right through their sweatshirts left them both flinching against the biting cold. “Fuck,” Bucky breathed out, “okay, time to go inside.”

Clint agreed readily to that. It was late anyway. He was tired. He also didn’t think his head could take much more thinking about all of this.

Bucky got to his feet, grabbing Clint under his arm and pulling him up as well. Clint stumbled a little, forgetting he was not quite sober, and staggered forward into Bucky. Bucky caught him with a quiet laugh, at which Clint scowled. Fine, nineteen year old him left something to be desired when it came to holding his liquor. 

Collecting the empty bottles and discarding them in the recycling bin in the hangar, Bucky pulled Clint into the elevator. He still had an arm around his waist, which was unnecessary, but Clint allowed it.

They got off at Clint’s floor, with Bucky asking Jarvis for a status update on Natasha. They were both relieved to hear that she was sleeping soundly. They crept past her door quietly on their way to Clint’s bedroom, where they’d both been crashing in order to keep proximity to her in case of another episode or a nightmare or something. They were honestly just glad they could get away with not sleeping on her floor anymore.

Both their eyes wordlessly fell on the bed, and then glanced at each other. Clint nodded.

It was quick work tumbling into bed after that, both of them too exhausted for anything else. Clint yawned, scooting closer to Bucky with every intention of abusing a new and welcome heat source. Without warning, Bucky dropped the weight of his metal arm over Clint gently, his other arm tucked under the pillow their heads were on as he pulled Clint back against him. A surprised sound escaped the back of Clint’s throat as he was suddenly turned into the little spoon, but he was ultimately fine with that. 

“Now who’s the fuckin’ starfish,” Clint muttered under his breath, the ghost of a wry smile on his face.

“Shut the fuck up, Barton,” Bucky huffed against the back of his neck. “Go to sleep.”

Clint burrowed closer to Bucky, exhaling deeply. “Mhhmm, g’night.” 

He felt Bucky press his mouth to the back of his neck, lingering for a moment. “Goodnight,” he whispered back.

It wasn’t long before Clint drifted off to sleep.


	6. Chapter 6

“No Steven, I’m saying you’re smothering me,” Bucky snapped, slamming the refrigerator door. “I’m not a child- I don’t care how old I look.  And you’re not my mother,  _ Steven _ ,” Bucky repeated his name like a taunt, knowing full well that he hated it. “So you don’t get to mother me.”

“It’s not about you Buck. Stop taking it personally. SHIELD hasn’t been able to track down that Red Room cell yet, and we still don’t know what they’re up to, so you and Barton and Romanova aren’t leaving the Tower,” Steve explained, nearing the end of his truly unimaginably large supply of patience in the way only Bucky and sometimes Tony could push him.

Bucky glared at him unhappily, hand on hip. “But-”

“And that’s final.” If there was one thing Steve was, it was stubborn.

But Bucky had his own bullheaded streak that was not to be trifled with. “Well, you’re just gonna have to try and stop me then.” 

“Bucky,” Steve complained. “Come on.” He was tired of the argument. They’d been having it all evening. For days, actually.

Clint watched it unfold from across the kitchen. 

He was leaning against the countertop, Natasha seated neatly cross legged beside him on the marble surface. She was still wearing her purple hawkeye pajamas from that morning because Clint got a kick out of them and she hadn’t felt like changing that day. They were silently plowing through a platter of leftover cold pancakes between them. Breakfast for dinner. Well, Natasha nibbled at different ones, carefully selecting and rotating between the blueberry, chocolate chip, cinnamon, and raspberry options, and Clint finished whatever she didn’t. They had a good system going. 

“Oh here we go again,” Clint muttered a little too loudly. He froze with a look of surprise on his face when both Bucky and Steve spun on him. “Uh-”

“You don’t get to talk,” Steve snapped at him, pointing a condemning finger his way. “Neither of you listen to a word I say anyway, so explain to me again  _ why  _ I should bend the rules for you now”

Bucky didn’t skip a beat, a smirk curling the edge of his mouth. “Because your rules are arbitrary and we don’t listen to them anyway-”

“Goddammit, Bucky” Steve swore, exasperated. 

“Watch your language in front of the child please,” Clint chided, placing his hands over Natasha’s ears. She swatted him away, relaxed still, but confused at all of the English being thrown about. She gave him the ‘I want you to explain but instead of asking I’m going to stare at you, silently becoming more and more frustrated’ look. 

Steve rolled his eyes. “She doesn’t even speak English-”

“Rude,” Bucky interrupted, frowning at him.

“ _ Steve is sad because he didn’t get any pancakes _ ,” Clint said in Russian. Bucky bit back a bitter laugh.

Natasha considered that, nodding sagely. That was a perfectly valid reason in her book. “ _ He can have some _ ,” she said quietly, eyes downcast as she looked at the dwindling piles on the platter that she had painstakingly divided into quadrants by type.

“ _ But these are our pancakes _ ,” Clint said, raising an eyebrow at her. “ _ And Steve is being annoying _ .”

Natasha frowned at him. “ _ He can have some _ ,” she repeated. She really had come a long way toward trusting Steve, Tony, Sam, and Bruce in the past couple of weeks.

“ _ That’s very generous of you. I will let him know _ ,” Clint said. Natasha nodded in agreement. Clint cleared his throat. “Natasha would like you to have a pancake,” Clint informed Steve pleasantly, “on the condition that you stop being a dick.” 

“I’m pretty sure she didn’t say that,” Steve deadpanned.

Natasha, unsatisfied with how Steve didn’t seem to get the message, lifted the platter up and held it aloft toward Steve as an offering. Her arms trembled with the weight of it a little, so Clint put a hand under it to prevent her from dropping it.

“An olive branch,” Clint chimed in again, smiling nicely. “Go on Steve, she’s waiting.”

Steve sighed heavily, visibly counting to ten. He stepped forward and took a pancake from the platter that Natasha offered, giving her a small smile and sending a sharp look at Clint as he turned away. Natasha, pleased with her philanthropic ways, set the platter back down and resumed picking the chocolate chips out of a pancake, dropping the bits she didn’t want into Clint’s waiting hand. 

Bucky came over to join them, pouring her a cup of milk which she accepted gratefully, offering Bucky a carefully selected blueberry pancake in return. She held it out expectantly until he took it. So it seemed she was not only charitable, but also a budding capitalist in the pancake market economy. 

Bucky leaned against the counter next to Clint, crossing his arms in the same fashion, their hips touching barely. He stared at Steve stubbornly.

“What would you even do if you left?” Steve demanded to know, pacing slowly back and forth through the kitchen. “What is so important that you can’t wait until we figure this out? You know that Tony and Bruce are onto something.”

Yes, Tony and Bruce along with the assigned team of SHIELD doctors and scientists were working on a lead. But it wasn’t their first inroad either- the other three ideas they’d been looking into hadn’t panned out. There was no evidence that this one would either. 

“It’s the  _ principle _ of the thing! You’re keeping us under lock and key. You want us to sit here on our asses until we grow old and die, Steve? Sure, we could wait some odd fifteen years. That’d fix the problem. But Natasha would have to wait a bit longer, see. And really that’s not the desired solution for any of us,” Bucky said with a hefty dose of sarcasm.

“The ‘principle of the thing’? Don’t you give me that, and don’t you give me that look either-”

Clint tried to tune it out. Natasha looked at them funny, then back at Clint, her trusted translator. Clint offered by way of explanation, “ _ Bucky thinks we should have ice cream for breakfast, but Steve won’t let us _ .”

Again, Natasha considered it thoughtfully before announcing her decision. She nodded her approval. “ _ We should. _ ”

“ _ I agree _ ,” Clint said. “ _ Anything you want to tell Steve?” _

Natasha nodded again, brow furrowed determinedly. “ _ That we should _ .”

“Hey Steve,” Clint called out, interrupting the growing argument. “Natasha wants you to know that she wants to go out and get ice cream. That’s what we would do. Right, Buck?”

“Right,” Bucky said, “go out and get ice cream. Or, I don’t know, maybe commit a felony or something. Who  _ knows _ what kind of trouble we could get up to, stepping into the great outdoors-”

Steve sighed. “Bucky-”

“-outside the safety of the Tower-”

“Buck.”

“-I guess I’ll just have to decide along the way if I’d rather get the mint chip or rob a bank-”

“James,” Steve begged, “Please, enough. I’m not going to change my mind, and Jarvis isn’t going let you override- not this time. ”

Clint sighed dramatically, bored with the argument already. It was so damn predictable, ending the same way it did every time either of them brought it up. By now, it was just a sore spot in their egos and a huge annoyance for everyone. 

“ _ I’m afraid Steve just isn’t going to change his mind, Tasha _ ,” Clint explained sadly, noting the tiny frown that crossed her face.

In the end though, apparently ice cream for breakfast wasn’t that big of a deal to her, at least, not as big a deal as she thought it was to Clint. She moved on to a cinnamon pancake, tearing it in half and giving one half to Clint as a condolence. Her expression stoic, she patted his hand reassuringly as he took it.

 

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

 

Clint was pretty sure Bucky was one slight inconvenience away from completely losing his mind. And when he finally lost, Clint was pretty sure he was going to take Steve with him.

The two had been at each other’s throats non-stop for the past two days. The arguments- full of petty name calling and eye rolling, passive aggressiveness, blatant aggressiveness, and sarcasm, and sweeping dramatic gestures and raised voices that weren’t  _ quite  _ yelling- followed the same pattern every time. Steve would hover too close, ‘sticking his nose where it didn’t belong’ or trying to ‘mother hen him’ as Bucky would remind him, or Bucky would walk into a room and glare or project his disatisfaction so loudly via body language that Steve had no choice but to say something. It only ever degraded rapidly from there. 

Thor was still gone. SHIELD really needed to make some interstellar cell phones or something. And Tony and Bruce sequestered themselves in the lab more often than not. Sam wasn’t really a full resident of the Tower-  _ yet _ , Clint predicted- but when he was there, he and Clint were usually the ones who found themselves in the position of the unwilling observers. It was like standing on the edge of the tracks and being forced to watch a head on train collision that they saw coming a mile off, but still there was nothing either of them could do to prevent it. 

Natasha had grown mostly comfortable being around the others so long as they gave her a wide bubble of personal space and Clint or Bucky, or preferably both, were within sight. It felt like Bucky had been shirking his babysitting duties a little bit, picking fights with Steve and then storming off and leaving Clint to hang out with Natasha. 

Well, really, it had gotten a lot easier and wasn’t a two man job. She still got angry. Something would happen that seemed small or random at the time, though in retrospect it was fairly clear that it had confused or scared or freaked her out for a reason. Fairly often the trigger was her thinking that Clint or Bucky were leaving her. Clint had taken to calling her ‘Velcro’ for how clingy she was. But, more so than irrational violence now, whenever she did get confused or upset or scared that they were leaving her, she started to withdraw. What tiny gains in speaking she had made were lost when she shut down completely. Mute and deaf and angry, she would try and run away from them, only to get increasingly angry and violent when they tried to go after her, or lord forbid to touch her or pick her up. 

No no else seemed to get it. They sympathised, and they let her have her way so long as it wasn’t hurting anyone or herself, but they didn’t understand anything she was doing. Clint recognized the pattern though. He got it. 

He had tried to explain it to Bucky one night while they were lying in bed, dead tired and emotionally drained after Natasha had a really bad day. He couldn’t really put words to it though. What he managed to get out was something incoherent about how a kid might or can or does or doesn’t react to certain things that remind them of worse things, or that sometimes, when they see it coming, a kid might try and draw away and avoid it altogether. That sometimes it’s easier to not depend in anything or anyone in the first place if it can’t be guaranteed that they stay. What he did managed to say didn’t make much sense to Bucky. He sort of understood it. He certainly tried to. And he did understand why Clint got it. Still, it was tricky.

Currently, Clint, Bucky, and Natasha were lounging on the sofa in the common space, watching some nature documentary that was just about the only thing on when Bucky had flipped through the channels. It was in English, but Jarvis had put on Russian subtitles for Natasha and she watched intently, absolutely absorbed in something or other about a pack of wolves in Yellowstone. 

Clint didn’t have his hearing aids in. He’d forgotten to take them out again last night and slept in them, and that morning his ears hurt and felt gross, so he was taking a break. He  _ could’ve  _ read the Russian subtitles, but that would have taken a lot of effort and energy that he didn’t have. 

When Steve and Sam entered the kitchen after their morning run- Sam having replaced Bucky in what used to be  _ his  _ and Steve’s morning run, which really rubbed Bucky the wrong way- Clint heard the warning bells. There was the train. Here came the collision. 

Clint sighed, checking back in with the wolves. He was slightly alarmed to find them ripping some poor deer apart, but more alarmed at how Natasha was still completely absorbed in it, not bothered one bit by the animal’s fate. She seemed to be enjoying herself. 

Clearly, he and Bucky weren’t parenting right. 

It wasn’t hard to tune them out when Bucky leapt up off the sofa, leaving Clint’s field of view to probably go fight with Steve some more. Sure, he had some valid arguments and complaints. It wasn’t like Clint was happy with their situation. But Steve had good intentions and some good arguments too. But mostly, Clint was just too tired to be invested in it. Neither of them were going to change their minds, and because Steve had Jarvis and the Tower on his side, Bucky wasn’t going to get anywhere except maybe drive Steve out of the Tower.  So what was the point.

The noise was all muddled. The narrator on the TV, the multiple, overlapping raised voices behind him… all of it blended together into an indecipherable mess. That was fine. He didn’t want to hear it anyway. 

But then it got quiet behind him suddenly, and because Clint was slightly concerned that they gone and killed each other, he twisted around to look over the back of the sofa. Clint and Bucky were looking at him expectantly. Clint rolled his eyes. He would’ve thought they’d have noticed he couldn’t hear them by now.

“Rapture,” he answered haphazardly with a shrug. “That’s the answer. Ya know I read online that the world’s supposed to end in like two or three months. Or, I dunno, maybe demonic possession.” He paused, pretending to think it over deeply. “Yeah, I’ll go with the possession.” Clint nodded and turned back around, flopping moodily against the cushion behind him,  arms crossed.

He was, admittedly, a little ticked off. Not just about that. About everything. All the fighting. He hated it. Especially in front of Natasha. 

Natasha pulled her attention away from her bloodthirsty wolves for the first time and looked at him funny. Even she, with her startling lack of communication skills, could still read him better than anyone else in the room.

“ _ I’m fine _ ,” he assured her. But no, actually. He was pissed. And he could feel it eating at him on the inside, holding tight. He couldn’t shake it. It wasn’t going to dissipate quickly. He took a measured breath. “ _ Nat, is it okay if I pause this? _ ” he asked her.

She nodded. 

He hit the button on the remote, fishing out his phone from his pocket with his other hand. “ _ Here, take it _ ,” he said, unlocking it, opening an app, and handing it to her. “ _ Why don’t you play this over there _ ,” he said, indicating to the cluster of armchairs across the room by the windows, “ _ while the adults have a conversation _ .  _ We’ll be right here. I promise _ .”

She nodded again, this time more eagerly. She snatched the phone out of his hand. The last time he’d let her play it she’d set the high score and he very nearly hadn’t gotten his phone back. Natasha slid off the couch and scampered over to the windows, selecting a seat and settling into it to play.

Clint mentally counted to ten. Then to twenty. It didn’t help much.

Standing up, Clint made his way around the sofa and stalked into the kitchen. He didn’t even try to put up a blank emotional facade. Based on the hesitant look that passed both of Steve and Bucky’s faces, it showed. 

“Now look,” Cint said, doing his best to regulate his volume, but he couldn’t make any promises. “I’m getting real tired of this old dog and pony show,” he snapped. “ _You’re_ not gonna budge on the holding us hostage thing,” he pointed condemningly at Steve with a sharp look warning him to shut it. “And _you_ , you _know_ you’re not getting anywhere. But you keep. Picking. Fights,” Clint emphasized as he turned his glare on Bucky. 

Bucky started to complain. Clint could tell he was getting defensive by the tone of it, motioning accusatorily at Steve, but Clint shut his eyes tight and shook his head, half turning away.

“No no no no no,” he said, refusing to hear- well, to lip read- any of it. “I’m done. I’m done. You’re on Natasha duty now Buck. I’m done. Don’t even try ‘an talk to me until you two sort this whole thing out. And you better sort it out.”

Clint turned his back on them and stormed away, refusing to look back until after the elevator doors had closed. He took a few deep breaths, but it didn’t do much to slow his pulse, thumping away angrily beneath his skin. 

He really wanted to hit something. Or shoot something. Yeah, to shoot something. He knew it wasn’t necessarily a ‘healthy coping mechanism’. He knew his SHIELD appointed psychologist would have a field day with him if he ever told the guy. But he was itching to get his hands on his bow now.

That was how he ended up on the range. 

That was also where Bucky found him, much cooled down after a couple monotonous hours of shooting things and shooting them again, later that night.

Clint saw him get off the elevator from the corner of his eye. Bucky didn’t say anything, his hands shoved in his pockets, shoulders slumped and head hung. He didn’t say anything, which was good because Clint wouldn’t have heard it. He slowly slid up behind him, watching silently a few feet back while Clint drew another arrow, nocked it, sighted slowly, struggled too much with the draw that was now too heavy but forced his way through it regardless, breathing in shakily and straightening his back, muscles straining as he did so. He held the string at full draw, held his breath, made himself count to three in his head, and released. 

The arrow hit a blink later, slotting alongside the others in a nearly complete, perfect circle surrounding the bullseye. He repeated the process, nocking, drawing, and releasing another arrow just as slowly and intentionally as the last. It was damn cathartic. 

Bucky stood a few paces behind him, leaning against the pillar silently the whole time. He waited until Clint’s last arrow completed the circle in the target. It was a calculated choice. 

Clint lowered his bow, letting his arms hang loosely at his side. Just about every muscle and tendon in his arms, shoulders, and back was sore and twitching from the hours of strain. It wasn’t usual, but then, his nineteen year old self didn’t use a bow with quite so heavy a draw weight. It was satisfying though. Highly satisfying. And the quick beating of his heart against the inside of his ribcage wasn’t because he was pissed off anymore.

So he allowed it when Bucky slid up behind him, his hands light on either side of Clint’s hips, his chest brushing against Clint’s back. Bucky lowered his head, forehead resting on top of Clint’s shoulder. He stayed there as Clint’s chest rose and fell with his somewhat labored breathing, still silent. Clint didn’t acknowledge him for the longest time, though he didn’t tell him to screw off either.

“You’re forgiven,” Clint finally said. He rocked back on his heel, leaning into Bucky slightly.

He didn’t expect a verbal ‘I’m sorry’ from Bucky. It was probably too much to expect. He was stubborn and rarely willing to admit he was wrong and it wasn’t like he’d done something egregious or intentional or that he knew would get under Clint’s skin. That was fine. Clint was fine with that. Water under the bridge and all.

Bucky turned his head to nuzzle against the side of Clint’s neck, stubble grazing across his skin lightly as Bucky pressed his mouth against Clint’s neck, murmuring something quietly against him that Clint couldn’t hear a word of.

Clint reached out to set his bow down carefully on the weapons counter beside him and then rotated in place to face him. Bucky slid his arms around Clint’s waist loosely, staying exactly where he was until they were almost eye to eye, Bucky an inch or so taller and barely more than that apart. 

“What’d you say?” Clint asked, eyes flicking up from Bucky’s mouth to his eyes and back down again. He couldn’t very well read his lips if he didn’t look, but the way Bucky’s tongue flicked out to wet his bottom lip, and the way his teeth grazed over it nervously, was a little distracting.

Okay. A lot distracting.

“I’m sorry,” Bucky repeated. Clint was still deaf but he was certain that’s what he saw him say. Before he said anything else, Bucky reached into his pocket, pulling something out and offering it to Clint.

“Oh.” Clint accepted his hearing aids from Bucky’s hand, turning them on and fitting them into place a little awkwardly without much elbow room. Bucky waited. “Well.” A small smile quirked the edge of Clint’s mouth upward. He nodded. “Okay. Thanks. And, it’s okay. Don’t worry about it.”

“Didn’t mean to be such a dick.”

Clint shrugged. “You weren’t really. I just… I dunno. I hate it when you and Steve get to yelling at each other like that. You’re supposed to be, like, best friends in the whole history of friendship or somethin’. Smithsonian’s got a whole display about it…”

Bucky smiled guiltily, bumping his forehead against Clint’s. “Well, we’ve had our runs at each other before, too. You shoulda seen us at each other’s throats for ages over Steve trying to enlist. Problem now is, I can’t just beat him into submission,” Bucky sighed, joking.

Clint smiled at that, wavering but genuine. This time he dropped his head onto Bucky’s shoulder, wrapping his arms around his middle. “Well,” Clint muttered, “I hope you sorted it out.” Bucky’s shoulders stiffened in a  _ barely  _ noticeable tell. “Oh hell, don’t even tell me,” Clint groaned in dismay, smothering his face in Bucky’s sweatshirt.

Bucky chuckled, his hand trailing up his spine to cup the back of his neck. But then Bucky pulled away, hooking a finger under Clint’s chin and tilting his head up to look at him. “Don’t worry,” he assured him. 

“Did you at least get Natasha to go to bed?”

“Yeah, and Steve’s nearby if she needs anything. Steve and I agreed to disagree, and that’ll be the last of it. I promise.”

Clint remained silent for a long moment. “Well,” he finally sighed, letting the last bit of the tension he retained drain out of him. “I can’t really say that I disagree with you,” he admitted.

Bucky laughed once, arms around him tighter for a second. Something defiant and hopeful, and maybe a tiny bit devious glinted in his eye. He grinned at Clint, biting his lip coyly. “Then… let’s go,” he said, like it had just occurred to him.

“What?” Clint blurted out, shaking his head. “I thought- you just- what?”

“ _ You _ want to get out of here, _ I _ want to get out of here, we’ve been locked up for weeks… let’s go,” Bucky said again, only growing in confidence. He grinned smugly, grabbing Clint’s hands and tugging him along as he backed away.

“Uh, maybe not a great idea-” Clint started to say, but Bucky only shook his head, smirking.

“Nah,” he insisted. “Let’s break some rules-”

“Buck I don’t know-”

“-gonna fly the coop, get outta this joint-”

“Bucky...” 

Suddenly he yanked Clint forward, pulling him into a tight embrace, their faces mere inches apart. Bucky grinned brightly at him, the type of smooth smile that would make anyone week in the knees. The type that you didn’t quite want to bring home to introduce to your mother. Clint was pretty sure his heart skipped a beat. He was more than a little smug too when he said,“Let’s blow this popsicle stand, baby.”

Wow. Clint really had a hard time saying no to that.

In fact, Clint had a sneaking feeling that the Smithsonian and the history books got it all wrong. He was pretty damn sure that it wasn’t just Steve who got the two of them in trouble. Bucky was the farthest thing from an innocent bystander, and he definitely wasn’t the type that Steve could’ve dragged into anything he didn’t want to do.

 

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

 

Any malfeasant planning or troublemaking was put on hold and promptly forgotten about when not even an hour later Jarvis sent them both post haste to the med bay. It had all the bells and whistles of a ‘Natasha freaked out again and you need to come get her’ alarm, so much so that the spike in Clint’s blood pressure was probably Pavlovian. 

But when they arrived, Natasha was nowhere in sight.

Clint eyed Tony and Bruce and the swarm of five of SHIELD’s medical staff- all white coats and vaguely familiar faces- suspiciously. He suddenly felt very misled by the whole situation. “Uh… what-”

He wasn’t able to finish that thought. He and Bucky were beset upon by too many people talking at once. After a second of incoherent, excited jargon though, Tony took control of the conversation.

“Fantastic news, you’re welcome children,” he crowed, waving the clipboard in hand erratically as he spoke. “After many hours and much deliberation-”

“You found a way to fix us?” Bucky interrupted, tone deadpan and unimpressed. He wasn’t willing to let himself be or sound hopeful. Not yet.

Tony’s expression faltered. “Well, we’re almost-”

“You know what exactly happened to us?” Clint asked, trying to stay positive.

Tony was beginning to get annoyed with how they’d hijacked his lead now. “It’s a little most complicated than-”

“You know  _ how  _ the Red Room did this?” Bucky asked, even more unimpressed than before, if that was possible.

“Or what they’re doing now?” Clint jumped in.

“Just let me explain,” Tony stopped them, his hands up defensively as he took a half step back from the onslaught of questions. 

Clint tried to pay attention to it all and to understand, he really did, but he felt like more than half of it went right over his head. In short though, Clint got that they had made an apparently pretty significant breakthrough in understanding how the Red Room’s device worked, based on data that SHIELD had collected on the residue of other infinity stones and the devices and weapons they’d powered in the past. 

Did they think the Red Room had actually gotten their hands on the time stone? No. They’d be even more cataclysmically screwed if they had. Like, literally sucked through a portal and thrown back in time sort of screwed. Did they obtain some alien technology that had likely come into contact with the infinity stone in the past? You betcha. 

And now that they knew what they were dealing with, and how it (sort of magically but in a very uncool way) worked, they were pretty certain that SHIELD had some fun things they’d collected and stored away that they could use to reverse it. 

Problem? They needed to run a lot more invasive and extensive tests to make sure it wouldn’t make it worse, or, ya know, kill them in the process. 

Thus began the poking and prodding, surrounded by too many moving bodies and too many sharp instruments which being asked too many questions and being made to do too many things. There was the blood drawing, before and after being put on the treadmill for what was surely longer than necessary, the electrodes measuring this and that, the blood pressure monitors, the various cell biopsies, the tests for reaction time, for memory, the CT scans, the MRI scans, the X-rays… the list went on and on. 

Clint took a deep breath and counted to ten and bit his tongue, just thankful that Natasha was exempt from it.

It wouldn’t have ended well.

By the time it ended for Clint and Bucky a solid hour later, it was late, and they were tired and sore and bitter, and the seething tension in the room was almost tangible. It was also in danger of shattering violently very, very soon. 

They were released afterwards. 

Bucky didn’t say a single word. Clint knew he barely tolerated the poking and prodding, the sterile environment, surrounded by white lab coats and made to do this or that and not move and to quit bothering people with questions. Not to mention he already got the short end of the stick with the added interest of the doctors in his arm. It rubbed him all manners of the wrong way. It was a too familiar in the worst ways. Clint knew that. He didn’t really get why nobody else seemed to.

Clint figured it was reason enough to excuse his resultant shitty mood. Not like they needed to talk about it anyway- lord knows neither of them were good at it. 

Still, it left an unfamiliar, twisting pang of discomfort in Clint’s chest when Bucky, without so much as acknowledging Clint’s presence beside him, stepped off the elevator before Clint on the floor he shared with Steve. Not Clint’s floor. And that was fine. Clint should be fine with that. He had his own damn space and room and bed and there was absolutely no reason, with how well Natasha was doing not having nightmares, that he shouldn’t.

Clint fell into bed alone for the first time in… a while. Since their night of smuggled beer and gentle,  _ real  _ touches and words he half believed were just a wishful dream on the landing pad high above the city lights.

He wouldn’t ever admit it, but something about it hurt. He knew Bucky was upset, but not upset with  _ him _ , so he would come around and it would be fine. But it wasn’t just the fleeting cold shoulder that hurt. 

Bucky was upset. Clint didn’t like it. He resolved to do something about it.


	7. Chapter 7

“Bucky,” Clint called in the dim light of the bedroom. “Buck.” He grabbed a pillow off the bed and threw it down at the blanket covered lump sprawled across the mattress. “Get up.”

There was a slight stirring, a grumble of annoyance, and when Clint dropped down onto the edge of the bed this time and hit him with a pillow again, an angry mumbled “fuck off” from under the sheet pulled over Bucky’s head.

“I’m not leaving until you get up,” Clint persisted. After a moment passed with no response, he yanked at the sheets, attempting to throw them and the tangled mess of blankets, comforter, and pillows that Bucky was buried in off the bed completely.

He was half successful. Really it only got him an easily dodged arm swiped blindly in his direction and some grumbled expletives. 

“Alright, fine,” Clint said, rolling his eyes. “Jarvis, lights please.”

Jarvis complied immediately, the overhead lights turning on to full brightness and the shielding tint on the windows disappearing to let in the early hour sunlight. Bucky only rolled over onto his back, pulled a pillow over his face to block out the light, and flipped Clint the bird. 

“Buck, quit being dramatic,” Clint said, hands on hips and frowning disapprovingly, not that Bucky saw.

“No. Won’t,” was his barely audible, monosyllabic reply.

“Buck.”

“Not ‘nless we’re un’er attack or Tasha’s havin’ a fit.” He poked his head out to give Clint a one eyed glare, squinting at the bright light. “She ‘avin a fit?”

“No. Natasha is already up and she’s fine,” Clint said.

He pulled the pillow back over his face. “Yer turn to watch her.”

“I alway watch her.”

“Lies.”

“I’ve had her the past three mornings Buck. I’ve watched her the past three  _ days _ while you’ve been sulking.” Clint cut him off before he could protest. “But that’s not why I’m here. So would you please just get the fuck up?”

“I’ll take it under advisement,” he said, and proceeded to lie there without any indication he was going to do as Clint asked.

“Preferably before Steve and Sam get back from their run.”

“Mm-hmm.”

Clint waited another moment, losing patience. “Fine. I see how it is.” 

Clint grabbed the pillow currently over Bucky’s face, intending to yank it away, but Bucky refused to relinquish his hold on it. It quickly devolved into a shoving and tugging match, Bucky finally sitting up and Clint practically being pulled onto the bed in the wrestling for the pillow, intermingled with frustrated swearing, pleading, and grappling. Clint shoved the hand that had been holding him back off his chest, lurching forward to grab the pillow Bucky was holding out of reach with his other hand, straddling Bucky’s lap as he did so. On his knees and off balance, it was too easy for Bucky to flip him over, Clint’s back hitting the bed with a muffled whump as Bucky rolled over, holding himself up on his elbows but most of his weight pushing Clint into the mattress.

After the span of the second in which Clint found himself losing track of which side was up and which was down, he blinked to find a whole lot of super soldier on top of him. Bucky’s face was hovering inches from his, his messy hair falling over his forehead and a frustrated, halfway to angry expression fixed on his face. He felt with an acute hyper-awareness every square inch of Bucky that was pressed against him, holding him securely in place.

Among the other topics and bad decisions covered by the useless, never ending running monologue in his head, Clint couldn’t help but note that anyone else suddenly finding themself pinned down by an even only slightly pissed off Winter Soldier probably wouldn’t be even a fraction as suddenly, inappropriately, completely unexpectedly turned on as he was right about then. 

Did it say something about him that he was absolutely into dudes who could definitely kick his ass? Probably. Maybe he’d address it with his SHIELD mandated therapist someday. But in the meantime, yikes, talk about bad timing. 

“Um, get off? Please?” Clint asked, tapping Bucky’s bicep lightly as if he could possibly have forgotten that Clint was still there, growing increasingly uncomfortable and feeling an increasing level of urgency to not be plastered against Bucky Barnes. 

Bucky shifted his weight to one arm, grabbing the hand Clint had tapped him with by the wrist and pinning it to the mattress beside them. Wow, fuck, not helping the situation. Not helping. His expression shifted subtly, still dark and brooding, but not so much angry. No, there was a slight smirk curling the corners of his mouth, and what Clint would definitely classify as a predatory gleam in his eyes. Not. Helping.

“James…” Clint said dryly, somewhere between the warning he’d meant it to be and an almost whining, pathetic noise that surely did not come out of his mouth.

Bucky leaned in closer, agonizingly slowly, close enough that he could probably definitely see the pulse racing at the hollow of Clint’s throat, close enough Clint could feel his warm breath ghosting against him. His mouth hovered just above Clint’s for a lingering moment, and a moment longer.

Swearing internally, Clint closed his eyes hard, swallowing. 

But then he felt Bucky’s weight shift, lifting off of him, and mattress dipping as he rolled to the side and get off the bed. Clint opened his eyes, seeing nothing but the ceiling above him. In his periphery, he saw Bucky’s retreating form padding quietly toward the bathroom, the door closing behind him.

“What the fuck,” Clint mouthed silently to himself. He collected himself, breathing in and out deeply a few times before sitting up, scrubbing his hands over his face roughly a few times and smoothing his hair down before getting up. 

Clint left the bedroom, waiting in the hallway outside. He leaned against the wall with his arms crossed over his chest, doing his best to look like he wasn’t nearly as off-kilter as he felt. 

A few minutes later and Bucky reappeared around the doorway. “What do you want anyway?” he asked, tired but nonchalant as if nothing weird had ever happened.

Clint cleared his throat, shoving all the other untimely thoughts down and into a tiny box that he could shove into some dusty corner in his mind and forget about until much later. “Grab a jacket. We’re going out.”

 

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

 

“This… isn’t what I was talking about earlier, you know. When I said we should get out of here.” Bucky looked... doubtful. Maybe not entirely hopeful, at best. Maybe like Clint was out of his goddamn mind, at worst. 

Clint shrugged. “Yeah, well, I think you’d agree that sometimes you take what you can get.”

“Um, no,” Bucky deadpanned, unimpressed. “No I wouldn’t.”

“Eh, the bar is low. Just roll with it.”

“Clint-” Bucky made a frustrated sound, looking up as if praying for patience, but Clint had already turned and was walking away. “Wait! Hold up.” He jogged after him down the hallway, sticking his arm in the way of the elevator doors to hold it but not getting on. 

Clint gave him a ‘what are you waiting for’ look, or his best approximation of it. “Well? Coming?”

Bucky didn’t move. “This. Is. A  _ horrible _ idea. Even for you.”

“Oh come on, it’s not like it’s that b-”

“What if she freaks out again? In public?” Bucky demanded. “What if she gets away from us? What then?”

“It’s been, like, forever since anything’s gotten to her. Buck… just trust me on this one, okay?” Clint wasn’t ashamed of the imploring look he threw Bucky’s way. 

Bucky shifted a little uncomfortably. “It’s been a week. Weeks and a half, tops,” he corrected.

Clint sighed dramatically. “Look, we’re compromising. We can’t both leave her here on her own or she’ll think we’ve abandoned her and she’ll probably kill someone, and we’re both sick of staying here, so we go and she comes with us. It’ll all work out,” he said like he couldn’t believe Bucky could possibly believe otherwise.

“We could sit her in front of a movie, tell her we’ll be back in a few.”

“Dude, no,” Clint laughed. “Nat already knows something is up- she’s just as intuitive as before. She turned into a kid, not an idiot. Besides, since when has she sat still for more than two minutes at a time?”

“When the National Geographic wolves were tearing livestock apart-”

Clint interrupted with a frustrated sound. “And you think  _ that’s _ a great influence? Great job of parenting  _ you’re  _ doing.”

“We are  _ not  _ parenting,” Bucky said firmly.

“Right. We’re babysitting. So where we go, the baby goes. And  _ we _ , are going  _ out _ .”

Bucky looked at Clint long and hard, working his jaw like he wanted to say something. Finally, with a pained expression that said he  _ knew  _ that he knew better, he threw in the towel. “You’re gonna go with or without me, aren’t you?”

“Yep,” Clint said cheerily, with a shit-eating grin if Bucky ever saw one. “Now move your ass. Let’s go.” 

“Fucking hell…  _ fine _ . Fine. I’m comin’,” Bucky relented. He stepped onto the elevator dragging his feet, finally letting the doors slide closed behind him. 

“Awesome,” Clint said, his smile only growing if that was possible. “She’s waiting for us in the kitchen anyway.”

 

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

 

The subway shook and rocked beneath their feet, the low rhythmic roaring in the background messing with Clint’s hearing aids enough to have Bucky turning to face him directly whenever he spoke. For the moment, Clint stood, swaying with the movement of the car with a hand on one of the overhead straps for good measure. 

Despite the mostly empty car having plenty of seats- there were only about a dozen other passengers, the time being a little after the early morning rush hour had ended- Bucky couldn’t bring himself to sit either. They kept to the far end of the car, away from the assortment of New Yorkers they shared it with, not quite settled down in the confined space and not quite casting enough cautionary glances across the other passengers for it to be obvious that they were surveilling them. That is, surveilling them with any more caution or with any different intentions that any other inherently distrusting and naturally suspicious born and bred New Yorker.

Old habits died hard. Public transportation, especially when it involved locking yourself in a confined box hurtling at speeds across a predictable, unchanging path for a set period of time, particularly when you couldn’t control what other unknown factors and individuals where in that box alongside you, was a tactical hazard at best. At worst, it could turn you into one of those cautionary tales told to fresh-faced recruits during hell week of training to scare the pants off them. 

Natasha was having a fairly good time though, by the looks of it. She talked more in the damn subway than Clint estimated she had in all her weeks at the Tower, babbling on excitedly with more questions than they could possibly answer before she was asking three more. In the current moment, the colorful map of train stops and subway lines captivated her attention as she studied it intently, occasionally reaching out to trace one of them against the plexiglass. As much as she flew around toward everything and anything that interested her, they didn’t have too much of a problem keeping an eye or a hand on her. She was still naturally mistrusting of just about everyone, and stayed close to both Clint and Bucky. Clint just wished he’d brought some hand sanitizer.

The tumbling string of unfamiliar Russian syllables from Natasha and from Bucky or Clint in their attempts to answer her questions got them more than a few looks on the platform as well as from the other passengers dispersed throughout the subway car. Most of it was the tired, bored, unimpressed or verging on nihilist look of your everyday commuter who knew the rules of never making eye contact on the subway and who was disinterested again within seconds. Still, whenever someone looked with too much interest or for too long, Bucky sent them a withering look and that was that. 

At least no one would recognize them, though. All they needed was a jacket and at least a glove for Bucky or a jacket pocket and they were good to go. That was something.

Clint watched as Natasha stared bright eyed and curious out the window, watching lights flicker past in the tunnel. While he was happy that she was happy, he hadn’t gone about the arborous task of planning this little escapade, mapping out how and when they would have an opening to escape the Tower, and getting Bucky to agree for her. No. Barnes had been sulking for days, in a constant cycle beginning with quiet, perpetual annoyance, then pissed off, then angry, and finally murderous before he’d disappear and go brood in a dark corner someplace for a couple hours and start over at annoyed again. It wasn’t even Steve doing it anymore. It was the goddamn medical tests that dragged on and on and Stark and Co. allegedly got closer and closer to figuring out how to fix them… but never quite did. Not since they’d apparently had some breakthrough a couple days ago.

Clint was going to put a goddamn smile on that man’s face or he would die trying. So far it wasn’t looking too great for him.

“ _ Are you going to tell me where we’re getting off? _ ” Bucky asked, keeping with Russian on account that Natasha demanded it and he didn’t care for anyone else overhearing.

“ _ No _ ,” Clint said with a grin, shaking his head. “ _ You’ll see. _ ”

Bucky rolled his eyes. All he knew was that they were on the train from Manhattan headed into Brooklyn and that Clint was in charge of this expedition, as she’d been reminded for the twentieth time.

When Clint finally did herd them off at their stop and lead them out of the bustling subway, swinging Natasha up onto his shoulders, Bucky’s mood seemed to improve dramatically with the thinning crowd and, finally, the fresh air.

Clint didn’t stop or wait for Bucky to catch his bearings. He continued right on down the sidewalk, on either side of the wide avenue old red brick buildings and wrought iron fire escapes  and original facades worked into the small boutiques and storefronts that lined the street. 

Clint stole a glimpse over at Bucky and tried- he really did- to bite back the tiny smile that tugged helplessly at the corners of his mouth. Bucky was doggedly following, an ever increasingly suspicious look plastered on his face. His brow was furrowed slightly in confusion, but there was also something else there as he swiveled around to get a good look up and down the avenue. A little bit of fascination certainly. Something verging on appreciation, maybe.

All the while Natasha was complacent up on his shoulders, soaking up every detail.

Clint directed them across the avenue, down an adjacent street, and left onto another side street that opened up into a tiny green space with a little cobblestone plaza and a couple benches. Something that could maybe qualify as a park, surrounded on all sides with a haphazard arrangement of old brownstones and tiny one way streets, everything slightly crumbling and covered in either rust or cracks or a display of moss and ivy. It was a misplaced, isolated corner of Brooklyn, where the streets and buildings all around this tiny bubble had been torn down down and rebuilt or gentrified to hell so that almost nothing original was left standing.

Clint finally came to a stop in the middle of the cobblestone plaza alongside the rusted benches. Reaching up, he pulled Natasha down off his shoulders and set her down. 

“Well,” he finally spoke up, shrugging. “This is it,” Clint declared, lifting his hands out to motion to everything around him before letting them drop back to his side. “This is Brooklyn. Not the gentrified hippie 2.0 part either. Now, lemme tell you, it was a bitch and a half to find, but everything here-” Clint twirled his finger in a circle “-original pre-war construction.”

Bucky didn’t say anything. He spun in a slow circle, drinking it in, nodding slowly. “Yeah,” he agreed after a long moment. “Looks- yeah, looks like it.” He stopped his turning in front of Clint, raising an eyebrow at him pointedly, expression guarded. “Is there a particular reason we’re here?”

“Um…” Clint dropped his head, suddenly finding the weathered stones on the ground to be quite interesting. He rubbed the back of his neck self consciously, shrugging awkwardly. “Well you were talking about- I mean before, back at the Tower, in the hangar that one night- about Brooklyn, like where you grew up, and how everything’s changed and different or gone and stuff and I mean, I mean it’s not like  _ everything’s _ gone there’s still  _ some  _ things that still stick around this city so I just figured like I’d- I don’t know- like this- this is-” Clint bit his lip, closing his eyes tight for a second and forcing himself to stop the word vomit that was coming out of his mouth right now. To take a breath. To collect himself. Because wow. Real smooth, hawkguy. Real smooth.

Before he could even look up again though warm fingers brushing the inside of his wrist, grabbing hold loosely, squeezing once. Clint looked up to meet Bucky’s eyes, a small smile on his lips, much closer than before, right in front of him as his fingers intertwined with Clint’s.

“Hey,” Bucky said quietly. “Thanks.” He took a moment to look around once again, wide eyed and mouth parted slightly in amazement. “You’re right, you know. Some things don’t really change.”

When he looked back at Clint, yeah. Okay. All the hassle? Worth it. 

They walked the circumference of the secluded park, surprisingly empty for any part of the city. Natasha darted ahead of them, never too far, always near enough to listen in and occasionally demand for a hurried translation. Bucky was a constant warm presence at Clint’s side, hands brushing as they walked, fingers occasionally sliding over the inside of his wrist, all of it just intentionally enough for him to know.

“So where are we exactly?” Bucky asked, still studying the old brownstones they walked past.

“The old district, right above the Navy Yard. It’s that way a good couple blocks,” Clint indicated, pointing out the direction. 

“Huh. Home sweet home, then,” Bucky mused, a wry smile twisting his mouth. 

“Close enough I guess.”

Bucky looked ahead up the street as they were coming up on the avenue again, but stopped in his tracks. “Hold up,” he said, frowning at first but then a touch of excitement lighting up his face. “I know that building- that’s the new library, yeah? It is, isn’t it?” 

Clint shrugged. “Well, I’m pretty sure they call it the old Public Library now, but yeah.”

“Shit, looks a little soot blackened like everything else in this place, but damn if it ain’t just like the last time I saw it,” Bucky mused, shaking his head in amusement as he caught up to Clint and Natasha.

“Oh yeah? When would that be?”

“Eh, probably when Steve last got us kicked out.”

Clint laughed at that, smiling brightly. “I don’t know why it still surprises me.”

“What, that Steve was always the troublemaker of the two of us?” Bucky asked.

“Yeah, that. I guess I just can’t imagine him doing anything but, like, helping little old ladies across the street with the Star Spangled Banner playing in the distance and a fuckin’ bald eagle perched on his shoulder.”

This time Bucky was laughing, shoulders shaking hard as he spun to face Clint. “Seriously? He cheats at cards,” Bucky listed off. “He’s a horrible cheat. And a gossip, too. Can’t keep his nose out of everybody’s business. He once stole a cat from this guy I knew-”

“What?” Clint interjected? “No. No way.”

“Ha. I swear on my own goddamn grave stone, he did. Guy lived down that way actually,” Bucky said, pointing down the block. “Well, I don’t think that street was actually there before, but somewhere around there. But anyway, Steve stole his cat ‘cause, according to him, he wasn’t takin’ care of it right,” Bucky explained, a little more old Brooklyn accent slipping out the faster he talked.

“What’d he do with it?” Clint asked the next logical question. 

“Uh, gave it to some girl we knew. Pretty sure he was sweet on her, not that he’d ever said anything to me about it. But, point is, I know that  _ I’m _ the one with the bad rep but  _ he’s  _ the lyin’, cat thievin’ bastard.”

Clint grinned at that. “For some reason I think Steve would paint me a very different picture.”

“I thought I just explained to you that you can’t trust a word that comes out of his mouth, or was I not clear?” Bucky jabbed him in the ribs playfully, a devilish smirk on his face.

“Ow, okay,” Clint laughed. “Copy that, Barnes.”

Down the block, Bucky brought them to a stop at the corner, staring up at a looming old building, the weathered front sporting a new paint job, but the bare bones of the facade was still there enough for Bucky to recognize.

“Hmm, pretty sure this used to be the old Alley Cat,” he commented, thinking.

“The what now?”

“Old bar. Kind of like a club nowadays, I guess.” He thought about that for a moment, smiling to himself. “Yeah, very much like a night club.”

“Booze, the occasional drug use, music, dancing, and half naked women?” Clint asked, joking, but Bucky nodded in begrudging agreement.

“Well, pretty much all of that, yeah. Not... so much the women, though,” he dragged out, giving Clint a quick knowing glance.

“Huh?” Clint wasn’t quite following.

“It was a pretty well known hookup place,” Bucky explained, looking at Clint like it should have been obvious. Clint just blinked at him. Bucky sighed, rolling his eyes. “A gay hookup place, Clint. A gay bar,” he deadpanned, shaking his head. “Holy hell, it was called the freakin’ Alley Cat, for Christ’s sake.”

Clint was left stuttering for words and blushing with embarrassment, but Bucky just laughed, grabbed his hand, and tugged him along. 

“Damn shame it’s gone,” Bucky continued, smirking back at Clint, who by this point was sure he was just making fun of him. “Place was historic. Prohibition gettin’ you down? Alley Cat had you covered. You need a safe place to stay, where nobody will come lookin’ for ya and nobody’ll say they seen ya? Alley Cat.” Suddenly Bucky spun around and began walking backward a few steps, grabbing Clint’s hand and yanking him against his side. “You wanna fuck Thomas Pendanski in the back alley?” Bucky said in Clint’s ear, so low it was almost a growl, with a downright sinful smirk, his eyes dark and expression roguish. “Alley Cat.”

Clint froze in his tracks. If his face wasn’t already flaming red, it was now, and it wasn’t the brisk wind doing it either. Bucky just laughed and spun around, his hands shoved in his pockets as he kept walking.

It took Clint a solid few minutes to jolt into movement again, his heart in his throat and his dignity and composure in the gutter. He jolted forward, breathing hard in and out a few times. He started forward, racing and stumbling through his head about what he would say or do to laugh  _ that  _ off. 

That was when a flash of movement in the corner of his eye, a dark reflection in the glass storefront one moment and gone the next, brought him to his second stumbling halt of the morning. It was nothing. It should have been nothing. But whatever it was had his hair standing on end and clanging alarm bells ringing sharp and clear through the dull haze of flushed embarrassment. He whipped his head around, scanning the far side of the street. He wouldn’t have stopped, wouldn’t have even spared the thought-

“Clint?” Bucky’s voice, concerned and hesitant and suddenly next to him again, interrupted his train of thought.

“Huh? What?” Clint spun around, blank faced and blinking as, just as soon as it had hit him, whatever instinct had been triggered had passed. It struck him though how awkward and uncomfortable Bucky looked.

“Um, sorry,” he mumbled, glancing away for a moment. “If there’s a line and I crossed it…”

“What? N-no, no. No,” he shook his head ardently, unable for the moment to find any other word of denial or reassurance beside ‘no’ but still mostly getting the point across. “No, I just thought I saw- I don’t know. It’s fine. I’m good. Promise.”

“Oh. Okay,” Bucky said with a nod and a faint smile. “Good.”

It was Natasha tugging at his jacket sleeve urging them to quit standing around that ended the awkward moment. Clint and Bucky fell back into step, continuing their slow pace down the sidewalk. It was… nice. Bucky would occasionally comment on something he recognized or something that changed, Clint listened, they ribbed each other gently, poking fun and… Clint thought it was nice. If he were more self-aware or feeling particularly like jinxing himself, he might have called it flirting. But, well. He was just gonna roll with it.

When they came up on the park on the waterfront, strolling down the promenade, Brooklyn Bridge rising above them them in the background, they stopped there a moment against the railing, just admiring the view for a moment. Clint bought Natasha an ice cream cone from a nearby vendor and she hopped up on a bench with it happily enough, finally staying still for a moment.

“Now that,” Bucky said, nodding toward the suspension bridge, “that, is just how I left it.”

“I should hope so,” Clint agreed. “Brooklyn Bridge. Built 1883. Hasn’t changed since.” 

Bucky gave him a funny look. “Okay, not even I knew that,” he said skeptically, resisting the tug of the smile at his lips. “What, just  _ that  _ familiar with the area, are you?

“Huh? No. I did my research,” Clint said, a little indignant. “I  _ planned  _ for this little… whatever it is, you know.” And he should have stopped there. He really should have. But Bucky was looking at him,  _ smiling  _ at him like that, and it was magnetic or gravitational or something because Clint couldn’t pull himself away and he was pretty sure his brain was short-circuiting and there was no stepping on the breaks. “I mean, yeah I’m  _ kinda  _ familiar with Brooklyn- more than the other boroughs, I guess. I’ve got a place- well, used to have a place, but technically still do?- in Bed-Stuy. Just an old brownstone, nothing that special really-” Bucky was trying to keep a straight face, his shoulders shaking slightly. “And that’s really not what you were asking so I’m just gonna stop there, yeah,” Clint muttered, dropping his head and shuffling a half step away awkwardly as if it could mitigate the butterfly feeling in his stomach.

“No, I’m interested now,” Bucky assured him, stepping closer to Clint couldn’t edge away. “So’s it like a safe house or something?”

Clint shook his head, string across at the skyline to avoid looking at Bucky, who was once again standing too close for him to  _ not  _ notice just how close he was and how much damn body heat he was radiating. “No, like, an apartment. I haven’t  _ always  _ slummed it on Tony’s dime in a Manhattan penthouse, you know.”

“Well sure,” Bucky acknowledged. “I just, I dunno, never really thought about it.” After a moment, “You still have it?”

“Well, I kinda,” he shrugged, unexpectedly self-conscious, “own the building? It’s… a really long story. Full of track suit Russian gangsters and this girl who’s a pain in the ass but a pretty good friend and a whole lotta regrettable decisions, even by my standards,” Clint explained.

“Huh, that so?” Bucky mused, looking sort of surprised, but not really, when he thought about it. “You’ll have to tell me about it some time.”

Clint looked at him with a hint of surprise. “Really? It’s not that great a story…”

This time it was Bucky’s turn to look surprised, and doubtful, “Ha, like hell it’s not. Sounds like a rollercoaster from start to end.”

Clint just shrugged. “Maybe.”

“Must be nice,” Bucky continued, “having your own place. I don’t think I’ve ever lived on my own…”

“No? Never?” Clint asked.

“Nope. House was full with my sisters. When I did move out it was maybe a month at most before Steve moved in after his Ma passed. Then it was the army, and the very  _ idea _ of personal space or privacy became some sorta daydream,” Bucky laughed. “Then, well, you know. And now it came round full circle I guess ‘cause this time I’m living in Steve’s place. Stark’s place, technically, but I think that guy’s forgotten how many houses he owns so that doesn’t really count.”

“That’s,” Clint trailed off, thinking for a second. “I can’t really imagine that. Sounds a little claustrophobic if I’m being honest.”

“Claustrophobic? What, family and friends bein’ around all the time? What’s the alternative? Bein’ lonely all your life?” Clint glanced away, shrugging dismissively as if that didn’t hit a weird chord in him. Bucky was quick to notice though. “Aw, come on now,” he said, throwing his arm over Clint’s shoulder and pulling him closer against his side before Clint could back away again. “I didn’t mean it like that. And I’m not saying that having your own place doesn’t have it’s perks. Must be nice to have some privacy.”

“Yeah, there is that,” Clint agreed.

“Imagine it. Some place away from the Tower. No cameras everywhere, no Steve barging in wherever he damn well pleases whenever he wants without knocking,” he mused with a smile.

“No AI butler controlling the place who holds you hostage so you can’t leave without hot wiring the junction box and shorting the circuits on the garage door…”

Bucky laughed aloud at that, his arm tightening around Clint’s shoulders before dropping away. He turned to face Clint again, checked his hip against the railing. There was less than a foot between them. “Yeah, none of that either,” he agreed, but then his mouth was twisting into a rueful smile, sour with displeasure. “Speaking of, though… they’ll have figured we’re gone by now. Hell, Steve will probably have Stark scanning through the whole city’s surveillance systems to find us.”

Clint frowned. “Well, I’m pretty sure Congress actually made it quite clear to Tony last time that that’s pretty illegal, and only to be used in case of dire, ‘oh god, the city’s under attack from aliens or some shit’ emergencies.”

Bucky rolled his eyes. “You really think Steve, or Tony for that matter, would ever let a little thing like a couple elected representatives get in his way if he thought he was doing the right-”

Bucky trailed off suddenly, eyes darting over Clint’s shoulder and then slowly raking across the park behind Clint. His smile dropped away, replaced by tight jawed, blank-faced suspicion. Clint resisted the immediate impulse to turn around and look at whatever caught his attention.

“Bucky?” Clint asked quietly, not betraying anything in his tone despite the uptick in his heart rate. “Buck?” he said again when he got no response. “What is it?” He pivoted, leaning back against the railing casually, not like he just wanted to put his back to the water and get eyes on their surroundings.

Then Bucky blinked, shaking his head slightly. “Hm? It’s nothin’. Just thought... nothing. We should probably get heading back is all I was saying.” Despite that, Clint saw his eyes dart back to Natasha, who was still sitting beside them finishing her ice cream, and then scan across their periphery once more.

“Buck, if you saw something-”

“I didn’t- I don’t think it was anything. Just a feeling, you know? Just jumpy is all,” he said, crossing his arms. 

“Okay,” Clint nodded, but the recent memory of that feeling earlier came back to the forefront of his thoughts. “Okay, we should still get back though.”

“Right.  _ Let’s go, Natalia _ ,” he said, stepping over to Natasha. “ _ Time to go home _ .”

They started out of the park headed for the nearest subway entrance, this time with Bucky lifting Natasha up onto his shoulders as they walked. Clint couldn’t help but feel a sense of unease, though he couldn’t put his finger on exactly what was off. But he knew enough to trust his gut, and it told him that something was up. The way Bucky kept a hand loosely wrapped around Natasha’s ankle, like he wanted to keep a more secure hold on her, and the way he routinely swept his gaze across the open space and up and down the sidewalk told Clint he was feeling at least a little the same way. 

The park was exposed. Without cover. Tactically vulnerable. Where a few minutes ago he could have appreciated the open space and the fresh air, now it was only a strategic nightmare. And once they left the park behind them and entered the concrete fishbowl of the streets and buildings rising on all sides, it wouldn’t be any better. They were both snipers. They knew just how many angles, vantage points, choke points and blind spots were available in a dense urban area. And Clint really wasn’t looking forward to the hazards of the subway. 

Back on the street, Bucky, even with a child on his shoulders, parted the thin traffic with a stormy, guarded expression and a purposeful stride like no twenty-ish year old should be able to. Clint stuck by his side, hurrying to match his pace while periodically stealing cautionary glances over his shoulder. 

They were a few blocks away from the subway when those glances over his shoulder had Clint catching shadows. 

“Hey Buck?” Clint called out to Bucky a few steps ahead of him. He turned his head to look back at Clint but he didn’t stop. “Hold up a sec.”

Bucky stepped to the side, into the mouth of narrow alley- no more than a trash strewn walkway really- between two buildings. Clint ducked around the corner after throwing one last subtle look behind him.

“What?” Bucky asked sharply. Not necessarily unkindly, just impatiently.

“Do you- um- have you noticed we have a shadow?”

“Ye-” Bucky began to answer, cutting himself off when a group of pedestrians passed the alley. “Yeah,” he said, nodding once. “I wasn’t going to say anything. I wasn’t sure. But… yeah. I know.”

“Do you think… Red Room?” he asked quietly, glancing at Natasha cautiously as he said it though he knew she didn’t understand. She was however giving him that frustrated look, her nose scrunched up and her brows furrowed as she narrowed her eyes at them. 

“I don’t know,” Bucky said, voice low but even. He sounded a lot more calm than Clint felt. “It doesn’t really matter.”

“Okay, plan then?” Clint was willing to ignore the look Natasha was shooting him that said ‘translate’ for a minute longer.

Bucky’s mouth twisted downward into a frown, thinking. “Get to a secure place, call for evac.”

“Steve? He’s gonna be pissed.”

“They’ll already be looking for us, and he’ll be more pissed if we don’t,” Bucky said, grunting in annoyance at Natasha’s kicking against his chest and reaching up to still her feet. “Can’t risk it anyway.”

“Okay then,” Clint agreed, glancing down both ends of the alley. “In the meantime we need to get someplace safe.”

“How far’s your place?” Bucky asked, a sly smile creeping up on his face against his better intentions.

“Too far,” Clint said, rolling his eyes. Natasha was glaring now, muttering under her breath, but that could wait. “Need to get someplace public, open, with lots of cameras.” He fished his phone out of his jacket pocket and turned it on.

Bucky nodded, though he couldn’t help the smirk. “Fine, follow me.”

They stepped back out onto the sidewalk, but Bucky immediately ground to a halt. “Fuck,” he muttered, spinning around and pulling Clint back into the alley.

Clint got a glimpse of what stopped him. The man stood out like a sore thumb in the thin moving crowd. Across the street, standing at the corner scanning the sidewalk, black canvas jacket, sunglasses, heavy boots, hand against the his spiral ear comm.  

“Aw shit,” Clint swore, pulling Bucky down toward the opposite end of the alley. “Come on.” When he peeked around the corner, he was met with an identical grunt across the street. “Nope, abort, abort, this way.” lint pushed him back toward the middle of the alley.

“This is not good,” Bucky said, keeping his voice calm for Natasha’s sake and hushing her gently. 

The fact that their shadows felt no need to keep a low profile anymore was  _ not _ good. The fact that there were more of them, and closing in on multiple sides, was worse. And there were probably more on the way.

“Okay, we go up,” Clint declared. 

“What?” Bucky started to say, but Clint was already setting off down the short narrow stretch at a jog.

Vaulting up a trash can, Clint leapt for the ladder of the rickety fire escape above them. He reached it without a problem, bringing it down with his weight with a dull rattle. “Up we go,” Clint said, motioning. 

Bucky swung Natasha down from his shoulders. “ _ Hold on tight _ ,” he told her, cradling her with one arm against his chest, her arms wrapping around his neck tightly. 

“ _ Like a starfish _ ,” Clint said with a smile as Bucky began to climb. She was nervous; she knew something was going on that had them anxious, not that they said it in a language she currently understood. Still, she sent him a small smile back. 

Clint followed him, lifting the ladder back up after him. As he climbed, he scrolled through the missed text messages and calls on his phone. “Tony’s probably tracking it already, but here goes nothing-”

“Just call already,” Bucky hissed, climbing the last flight of stairs to the roof.

The phone didn’t even finish ringing once. 

_ “Barton, I swear to god you better-” _

“Hey Cap, no time for the righteous indignation right now, in a spot of trouble. Trouble in the form of at least two pairs of boots on the ground, probably carrying guns. Buck, Nat, and I need evac ASAP.”

To his credit, Steve put the lecture aside and moved into problem solving mode.  _ “Where do you want us and how soon? What type of backup do you need?” _

“We’re on the move, Brooklyn Heights. Headed back to the waterfront but you should probably just track my phone. Don’t know how many there are but they’re in civies and staying under the radar up to this point- it  _ is  _ midday after all- so I wouldn’t expect too much- oh  _ son of a bitch _ .”

Bucky took a knee, dragging Clint down with him as he ducked beneath the lip of the roof, peering over the edge. He pushed Natasha’s head down. “See that?”

“Hard to miss,” Clint muttered.

_ "Barton? What’s going on- talk to me,” _ Steve’s voice carried over the phone, stern but concerned.

The black panel van pulled up to the curb on the far side of the street below. Clint was more than a little disheartened by the number of operatives that poured out, fanning out across the street. 

Clint laughed. It wasn’t funny. “Yeah Cap, their backup arrived. Can we expedite the evac?”

“Hey Clint, you got any great ideas?” Bucky asked, pulling Natasha close and reassuring her quietly, murmuring under his breath. “Cause now’s the time for ‘em.”

Clint’s heart was racing. He watched the dark clothed agents spread out, setting up a perimeter around the block below. It wouldn’t be easy to get out of this one.

If it were just them- if it were just Bucky and him-  he’d be all for jumping into this thing guns blazing. Except, they didn’t have any guns on them, because they weren’t even old to enough to drink legally, much less be official, licensed, and ready to kick ass Avengers. And except, it wasn’t just them. There was Natasha to think about.

And the last thing they wanted to do was risk putting her in harm’s way, or back into the hands of the people that did this.


	8. Chapter 8

“Steve I’m comin’ in hot!” Clint yelled into the phone as he ran at a dead sprint across the avenue, dodging out of the way of an oncoming SUV and jumping, sliding across the hood of a taxi as it slammed on the brakes. The sound of squealing tires, of blaring car horns and swearing New Yorkers was assaulting his ears, and the smell or burning rubber was in the air.

_ “We’re still in pl---- keep---- -- meet half---  ---second hel- ---- Bucky-”  _

“Cap, didn’t catch a word of that, catch you later,” Clint panted, shoving his phone back into his pocket and throwing a look over his shoulder. 

There were three- no, four of them on his tail. They didn’t look happy. They were definitely armed. But then, chasing him was the goal. Chasing him meant they weren’t chasing Bucky. 

Bucky had Natasha. 

He flew around the street corner, vaulting over a parked bike and nearly barreling into some poor lady weighed down with shopping bags.

“Sorry!” he yelled behind him, not slowing at all. “Comin’ through! Make a hole!” 

There was more yelling. They were yelling at him. And also at the four people causing even more chaos chasing after him. But hey, he’d be yelling at him too. 

He darted across the street, this time very nearly ending up as a smear across the pavement via a city bus. He added one more burst of speed, lungs heaving, legs burning. It was exhilarating and it was terrible. 

Why did he always end up running away so much? Every time, it seemed like he ended up running from something. At least they weren’t shooting at him.

He threw another look behind him. The city bus he sent careening to a halt helped put some distance between him and the four grunts that were hot on his heels. Of course, what he didn’t see then was the second black panel van swerving up on the sidewalk in front of him.

He felt it though. He felt it hard.

“ _ Fuck _ ,” he swore, trying to veer to the side but only making it halfway, clipping the tail light with his hip and wiping out on the pavement. 

He was up again just a fast, rolling over his shoulder and leaping forward to his feet hardly slowing at all before he even registered the dull throbbing pain in his side, before he noticed the sharper pain across his palms and forearms and the side of his jaw, or the blood streaked across them. He had finally made it to the park. He was running across the grass, even more black clad agents- he didn’t know how many more were in the second van- even closer now. 

He was pretty sure he heard sirens somewhere behind him. He wasn’t surprised. 

He was close now. 

It had been hell convincing Bucky to let him run, to be the one to draw them away. 

Really the plan was simple. So simple it was a common strategy for children’s games of schoolyard capture the flag. But it worked. These operatives- Red Room probably- they weren’t all that intelligent. They were the manual labor. Once they got the scent of blood in the water, they chased. He ran. They chased. 

But it was also a shit plan. Particularly for him. 

He made a hole in their perimeter, and Bucky took Natasha, made the best use of it, and made for their prearranged rendezvous with Steve and whatever army he probably brought along. 

Of course the entire plan relied on all the guns being trained on him. 

Bucky didn’t care for that. At all. But in the end of the day- meaning at the end of their rushed, curse riddled, borderline violent, three minute conversation- Clint was able to convince him that Bucky was the one best suited to protecting Natasha, if push came to shove, and that was what mattered.

Plus, Clint had a hell of a lot of practice at running, it seemed. 

Every jarring thud of his stride sent pain ricocheting up his side. He flew over the grassy slope, heaving oxygen into his lungs until he was pretty sure they were going to explode. He was also pretty sure he was setting a personal record on number city blocks sprinted without regard for personal or bystander safety.

Then, at the crest of the hill, on the wide expanse of concrete on the promenade that was now suspiciously devoid of tourists and locals alike, he saw the helicopter. SHIELD logo, not surprising. There were agents too. Friendly, hopefully. With guns, preferably. 

He thought he was in the clear, too. That was when about 250 pounds of hulking un-friendly gun-toting Red Room agent slammed into his lower back in what was definately an illegal tackle. 

That also meant that all of those SHIELD agents and possibly Captain America saw him get a face full of grass and dirt. 

The breath knocked right out of his lungs and seeing white spots, he felt himself wrenched around on the dirt, his head slamming back into the ground. Coughing and choking for breath, he threw his arms up, grabbing the forearm that came down on him holding what looked like a syringe. Awesome. 

Clint was fairly certain for the- well, frankly he lost track- somethingth time that day that he was about to finally kick the bucket.

But then there was a flash of dark movement above him, and the weight of the man that had been kneeling on his chest was lifted clean off of him. He rolled over, inhaling deeply, scrambling for purchase on the ground and dragging himself away.

Then there were more hands on him, hauling him up to his feet and pulling him away. Clint threw his elbow hard into one of the owner of those hands’ face, spinning around and ready to run again.

“Ow! The hell?” Sam yelled at him, smacking his hand away. “That was uncalled for,” he complained, and yeah, Clint would give him that one.

Clint whirled around, trying to figure out what was happening and catch his bearings. SHIELD agents were rushing past them in the direction of the rest of Clint’s pursuers, working rapidly to lock down the area. And on the ground, one especially pissed off looking Steve Rogers was cuffing the Red Room agent’s hands behind his back, letting two SHIELD agents take it from there.

“Hey, Barton, you alright?” Sam was asking, reaching out and grabbing his shoulder to steady him.

Clint shook his head, reeling.“What? Huh? Yeah, yeah, I’m-”

“Clinton Francis Barton,” a very loud, very pissed off voice- Steve Rogers’s Captain America voice, but angrier- was yelling at him. Quite sternly. “You better have a  _ damn  _ good reason for doing what you just did. I cannot  _ begin  _ to describe just how-”

“Where’s Bucky? Where’s Natasha?” Clint panted, blinking at Steve without hearing a word.

“What?” Steve snapped at him.

“Bucky? Tasha? Are they okay?” His hands were shaking a little bit. His everything was probably shaking a little bit. He definitely wasn’t breathing. 

They- meaning Steve mostly- must have decided that Clint didn’t look like he could take the lecture right about then, because they yelling stopped.

“Wow, Clint, you okay?” Sam asked, looking at him up and down.

Maybe it was the adrenaline crashing through his system, or the rush of oxygen that finally hit his brain, but it was very possible that the world stopped for a minute there.

“Am I, okay?” Clint asked, shaking like a leaf and probably just as green. “Am I _okay_?” He wasn’t hearing quite right, like always, but his voice definitely went up an octave or twelve. “Are you _fucking kidding_ me Rogers?! I’m covered in dirt and blood and I was _basically_ hit by a car! I just sprinted across like _twenty_ city blocks and just as many lanes of traffic! And I am _still_ in a body that _is not my own_. I can’t even stand up straight right now but you think that _this_ is the time to give me shit for this? When clearly, _clearly_ , I am not responsible for these people trying to kill us? So instead of giving me a goddamn _lecture_ , or asking me _if I am okay_ , how about you _answer my goddamn question and tell me where they are_.” 

Clint’s chest was heaving, and his everything was pounding painfully, and the ground was swaying under his feet, but it was worth it. 

“They’re okay,” Steve said, more calmly than before. “They’re in the second chopper, headed back to the Tower.”

“Oh,” Clint said, nodding. “Okay then.”

“Okay?” Sam asked, not knowing what Clint meant by that.

“Okay… means I can do this then,” Clint gasped, and his legs gave out from under him. 

 

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

 

He still wasn’t entirely sure what happened, or at least what happened between collapsing in Brooklyn Bridge Park and more thoroughly regaining awareness back in the Tower’s med bay. When he did come around, it was while simultaneously trying to process Steve’s well-prepared, vigorous reprimand about responsibility and asinine decision making, and Tony’s excited, technical jargon filled, caffeine-driven explanation about how he was finally going to fix this de-aging thing.

It was all a blur from there. 

All he did know was that he was very, very tired, and in a not insubstantial amount of pain, and he still hadn’t seen Bucky or Natasha. 

And then, in his first two seconds of peace and quiet, Phil Coulson came in to take his statement for SHIELD’s records about what happened. He explained that the SHIELD team apprehended the operatives that had been set on taking them alive (so it seemed), no doubt because of whatever their de-aging technology had done to them. She explained that the scene was secured, and that the media had picked up the story SHIELD had fed them. 

So everything was good. Mostly. Except he was in a hell of a lot of trouble with Steve still, and Coulson wanted details that Clint wasn’t too comfortable sharing, like what they were doing and why they had done it and with what purpose they had been doing it.

Fucking nosey, the lot of them.

So he gave Coulson the bare bones of the story that he needed and kindly told him to fuck off and let Steve kill him in peace. Coulson still hadn’t really worked his way off Clint’s shit list. Dying and letting him think that it was his fault but then not actually dying and not telling him about it for over a year could do that to a guy. 

He really just wanted to see Bucky, and Natasha, but Steve was threatening him with a straightjacket- as if he had never practiced escaping one of those- if his feet so much as hit the floor. There were definitely loopholes to that threat, but Clint was pretty sure that Steve wouldn’t be impressed.

So he sat in his hospital bed and he waited.

That brought him the point when Tony and Bruce and a pack of doctors walked in, explained something he half understood, got him to sign a frighteningly tall stack of paperwork, and stuck a needle in his IV drip, putting him out like a light

Apparently, body swapping was that easy. If you spent the many weeks prior figuring out the science-y, magic-y, really awful part of it first.

Of course, Clint didn’t really care about any of that when he woke up, feeling like he had both the worst hangover of his life and like he’d been hit by a train, staring at the ceiling of the Tower’s med bay.

He tried moving, but quickly ixnayed that idea when his whole body screamed in protest

“Yeah, wouldn’t recommend moving. Not at first,” a voice spoke up from the far side of the room, out of view. 

He recognized that voice. It sent his heart skipping a beat. But because he had apparently no self preservation instinct and no ability to follow directions like a normal person, he tried craning his head up to see where it came from anyway, leaving him spinning and seeing stars, in addition to the painful noise of the entire orchestra crammed into his skull smashing around. “Aw, fuck,” his own voice rattled, distant and a little unfamiliar.

When he managed to open his eyes again, at least he could see straight. 

“I said don’t move, dumbass,” Bucky’s voice came again, this time most assuredly accompanied by an unimpressed eye roll.

“Buck?” Clint called out. “That you?”

“Yep.”

“You okay?” Clint asked, rasping slightly and squinting at the light.

“Am  _ I  _ okay? Seriously, Barton? You should see yourself right now.”

“Why? How bad are we talking?”

“Horrible. You’ve got more stitches than I can count and you’ve gone and aged, like, over a decade over night.” Was he laughing at him?

Oh, wait.

Clint sat upright, against his better judgement, but he was willing to ignore just how bad that felt for a moment. “Wait, what?” He looked down at himself, his head still spinning and every fiber of is being aching, but that didn’t stop a stupid grin from creeping up on his face. He looked back up at Bucky, and damn, that lazy smirk he got in return was not coming from the kid he saw yesterday. “Shit, they finally- I mean we’re- aw fuck yes.”

He had never been so happy to be himself.

“Yeah, yeah Stark and Banner figured it out,” Bucky agreed. “Feels like a hell of a hangover, comin’ out of it, doesn’t it?”

“I’ll say,” a new voice interjected, low, bitter, pained, and all kinds of resentful.

Clint snapped his head over to the other corner of the small observation room- too quickly, given how his head was spinning again and he wanted to throw up a little- and his eyes landed on Natasha. Proper, grown up, self-sufficient and looking a little like death Natasha Romanova. 

“Tasha?” Clint asked, doubtful but also quite possibly never happier in his life. 

“The same,” she deadpanned, dropping her forehead back against her knees where they were pulled up to her chest. She sat on her bed, looking rather ill all things considered.

Clint dropped back against his mattress, slowly. “Oh, wow, okay. Thank fuck. Okay, you? You are awful. I hate you a little bit, okay? Also are you okay? I am so so so sorry like wow fuck-”

“Clint,” she stopped him, agitated. “Shut up. Calm down. I’m fine. Everyone’s fine.”

“Do you- do you remember what happened? Any of it?” he asked.

Natasha hesitated, thinking. She glanced over at Bucky, who just shrugged, before answering. “Some of it,” she admitted. “Not a lot. But for the sake of everyone involved’s dignity and privacy, officially I remember none of it.”

“Um, okay,” Clint said, blinking up at the ceiling confused. “I don’t really? Follow?”

“Oh my god,” she groaned, almost physically pained by it. Bucky just laughed, letting his head fall back against the wall where he sat cross legged on his bed against it. “Subtlety, Clint. There is this thing called subtlety. You neither have it nor the ability to recognize it.”

Clint scooted up in his bed, frowning indignantly. “Hey, I don’t wake up and immediately start insulting  _ you  _ for no reason-”

“That  _ isn’t  _ what she’s talking about, Clint,” Bucky chided gently, still smiling that obnoxious, intoxicating, really really distracting smile.

“Then clearly somebody needs to spell it out for me, the resident dumbass in the room,” Clint said bitterly, sitting up and crossing his arms defensively.

“Would be happy to,” Bucky said with that same damn  _ infuriating  _ smile.

“Please do,” Clint snapped, feeling very much under attack from all sides with no idea why it was happening.

“Oh my  _ god _ .  _ Bullshit. _ ” Natasha jumped up to her feet, swearing in Russian and swaying off balance slightly as she stormed toward the door, looking utterly displeased. But ultimately, she was rolling her eyes and shaking her head with an expression that read, ‘typical’. “I’m done. I am so done. Unbelievably done. Just get a room already.” 

The door slammed shut behind her.

“What?” Clint asked, lost again.

But Bucky was already halfway across the room, still smirking when he dropped onto the side of Clint’s bed. He was still smiling that goddamn infuriating smile that had Clint stammering for words when he reached out and grabbed Clint by the collar of his shirt, tugging him forward and crushing their mouths together.

It was chaotic and a little painful and it wasn’t perfect, all fast and careless at first. Not much more than the press of lips against his. Clint couldn’t help the surprised noise that escaped his chest when Bucky landed that first, hard, off-center and desperate kiss on him that sent his eyes fluttering closed, and he couldn’t help the sound he made at the dirty slide of tongue and nipping teeth at his bottom lip a moment later. But he also didn’t care, so there was that.

Clint grabbed hold of the front of Bucky’s shirt, his other hand sliding into the hair at the nape of his neck as he deepened the kiss, Bucky’s hand resting at his jaw and tilting his head back. The sound he made, a freaking  _ growl  _ when Clint tugged at his hair, had Clint’s heart rate skyrocketing. Bucky moved and Clint went willingly, his mouth falling open against him. Then it was a clash of lips and tongue and teeth that had him out of breath, panting and cursing and gasping for air when Bucky’s mouth moved away from his mouth to his jawline and down the column of his throat, biting and sucking and pulling a moan out of him that would have been embarrassing if he cared.

Clint pushed him away after a moment with a firm hand on Bucky’s sternum, and he relented, though with a disappointed sound. Clint pulling him back, letting their foreheads rest together for a moment as Bucky caught his breath, still fucking smirking, so goddamn pleased with himself as he kissed him again, little sips, softer and slower but just as needing. 

“Fuck, Clint, I’ve wanted to do that for-” Bucky was saying low and breathless and interrupted with more presses of his mouth against Clint’s. “For fuck, I can’t even say.”

Clint, breathless and reeling somewhere up on cloud nine and falling apart under the heat of Bucky’s touch trailing across his skin, couldn’t help but laugh. It was beyond unreal. “I must be on the really good pain killers then,” he laughed, though it was smothered under the relentless press of Bucky’s mouth.

“Don’t fuckin’ say that, jackass,” Bucky growled at him, biting and tugging at his lower lip punishingly, and pulling another of those  _ sounds  _ from Clint’s throat. “Not  _ on  _ anythin’. Ain’t dreamin’ this up.”

“Buck,” Clint said with all the seriousness he could muster, though it still came out breathy and utterly wrecked. “Couldn’t make any a’ the shit that’s happened this past month up if I tried. ‘Specially not this.”

Bucky cradled Clint’s face in both hands. “Darlin’,” he murmured, sliding his lips against Clint’s in a long, slow press,  careful and comparatively chaste, though then he was laughing silently, his shoulders shaking unmistakably as he pulled away a fraction, just enough to look Clint in the eyes, grinning madly. “You an’ me both.”

It wasn’t funny. None of it was funny. But they were high on adrenaline and whatever else had been in that IV, and the raw relief of everything finally being  _ alright _ again was intoxicating more than any drug. It felt like the world had just been lifted off their shoulders. 

“Yeah,” Clint agreed, grinning and shaking his head. “But, couldn’t hurt to make sure.”

Bucky laughed at that, smiling that same stupid smile, and leaned in to capture his mouth again. 

Just to make sure. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading, leaving kudos, and commenting!

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to everyone for reading and leaving kudos and comments!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Art: 2017 WinterHawk Reverse Big Bang Piece Two](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12980631) by [sian1359](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sian1359/pseuds/sian1359)




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